Can Dead Teeth Be Repair Themselves

Abstract

Teeth contain a living tissue chosen dental lurid, enclosed within a difficult, outer shell made of enamel and dentin. The dental pulp keeps the teeth alive by providing oxygen, nutrients, and the nerve supply to each tooth. Tooth cavities (also called caries) and injury can destroy the hard beat of the molar and, when the injury is deep, it can damage the pulp. Infection and inflammation in the pulp can lead to the expiry of the tooth. With a method called pulp regeneration, scientists aim to bring the life back to a dead tooth. In the near futurity, information technology might be possible to regenerate teeth in diverse shapes and sizes, and fifty-fifty have those new teeth resemble the missing teeth.

What Is a Molar Made of and What Happens When It Is Damaged?

Imagine a fruit with a difficult, outer shell encasing a soft pulp inside. The structure of a tooth is like, with a hard, outer, white casing fabricated upwards of substances called enamel and dentin, and a soft inner red pulp (Figure 1). The white part of the molar, which is visible in the mouth to a higher place the gingiva (gums), is called the crown. The part of the molar that holds it in the bone is called the root. Both the crown and the root have dental pulp in their centers. Dental pulp is rich in claret vessels and fretfulness, which provide oxygen and nutrients to the tooth, keeping it live or "vital". Additionally, our mouths are abode to millions of bacteria. Some of these bacteria protect the torso, while others eat the sugars present in the mouth and convert it to acid. This acid damages the teeth and causes cavities, which are also chosen caries. Enamel and dentin are the offset barriers against both bacterial infections and other trauma to the teeth, and they protect the dental lurid.

Figure 1 - A healthy tooth (left) and a tooth damaged by cavities or trauma (right). — Figure one - A healthy tooth (left) and a tooth damaged by cavities or trauma (right).

Symptoms of pulpitis, which is inflammation of the molar pulp, include pain and swelling. This is why regenerative therapies are needed to assistance patients when a molar dies. With new, promising, lurid-regenerative approaches, it will be possible to get a new, vital molar to supplant a lost or damaged tooth.

When an injury or infection crosses the initial bulwark of dentin and enamel, the lurid activates its repair cells, chosen stalk cells. Stem cells fight infection with the assist of immune cells, and they repair the damaged parts of the tooth past regeneration (re-growth) of dentin and bone. During regeneration, the claret vessels in the lurid expand. The pulp starts sending some signals that may be felt equally pain or every bit sensitivity to hot or common cold temperatures. Also, the enamel may turn slightly pink. This process of expansion and pain is called inflammation of the pulp, or pulpitis (Figure 1). If the infection/injury is non controlled at this stage, the lurid can expand until information technology is choked inside the hard, outer instance and dies, giving the molar a grayish-blue colour. This is chosen pulp necrosis. In more severe injuries, the impairment and infection may cross the root and spread into the surrounding os.

The age of a person at the fourth dimension of a tooth injury is an of import factor in deciding the handling options. In the instance of young adults, the careful preservation of healthy or vital lurid is disquisitional for the completion of root formation leading to a salubrious molar. The treatment in this case is called vital lurid therapy, because some vital lurid is left behind. In adults, the root is completely formed, so the infected pulp tin can be replaced with an advisable textile to block the tooth from further infection and increase its strength. This treatment is called non-vital pulp therapy, because all the pulp is removed.

How Do Dentists Currently Heal and Replace Damaged Teeth?

Over the last decade, rapid progress has been made in the field of lurid therapies to heal injured teeth [1]. As mentioned earlier, handling options available to preserve the pulp are called either vital or not-vital pulp therapies. Vital pulp therapy, also called pulp capping, is similar to applying a band-aid with some medicine onto the live pulp. The purpose of vital pulp therapy is to preserve the lurid tissue and keep information technology healthy, especially in immature adults whose teeth have been partially affected by caries or trauma. Vital pulp therapies are based on the ability of the pulp to repair itself, in the absence of infection [two]. Almost usually, calcium-based medicines are used to care for the pulp in the crown of the tooth and restore its vitality. Afterward healing the lurid, the damaged enamel and dentin are replaced with tooth-colored materials called composites, or silvery-containing dark metal fillings.

Non-vital pulp therapy, besides called root canal handling, refers to the removal and cleaning of the dead, infected pulp from the crown and root of the tooth. In a root canal, the damaged pulp is replaced with a suitable material to provide forcefulness to the tooth. In this treatment, thorough cleaning and disinfection of the root canals is washed using various chemicals and cleaning instruments. The clean canal created in the molar root is then filled with a rubber-like material called gutta-percha, which strengthens the roots when it hardens. Finally, the damaged tooth crown is replaced by an artificial ceramic crown. For infections that have reached the bone, surgeries are carefully performed past drilling a hole in the os, cut away the infected office of the root and the surrounding bone, cleaning the expanse, and covering the damaged surface area with a calcium-based medicine, for healing. This procedure is called an apicoectomy. The major drawback of non-vital pulp therapies is that, since no vital pulp is left behind, the molar loses its capacity to repair and regenerate itself. This makes the roots more than brittle and prone to fracture, which tin cause leakage of the dental chemicals from the root into the os and can make the tooth prone to greater structural harm [3].

How Is Science Improving the Methods of Healing Damaged Teeth?

In contrast to non-vital pulp therapy, which involves the removal of infected pulp, in that location are some new experimental therapies that focus on bringing back the lost vital pulp to the molar, including its blood and nerve supplies. This new approach is called regenerative endodontics, and it consists of 3 bones parts: (1) stem cells to re-grow the missing pulp; (2) a scaffold or matrix to grow the new cells on; and (iii) molecules for increasing the growth and formation of the new pulp, called growth and betoken factors [4] (Figure 2). By combining these three basic tools, the pulp tin can be regenerated and the vitality of the tooth can be maintained. Currently, these therapies are performed mostly in laboratories. As scientific advances continue, however, these therapies may exist good on patients in dental clinics in the hereafter. In laboratories, scientists utilize various cells from animals and humans to exam the new materials and their safe. The findings from these tests are used to develop models that are very similar in function and course to the human tooth and pulp. Such models are chosen 3D tissue models [five]. The effect of diverse drugs, dental materials, and treatment procedures can be performed on these models before the new treatments are tested on animals or humans.

Figure 2 - Tooth and pulp regeneration is based on tissue engineering research, which aims to rebuild lost body parts and organs. — Effigy 2 - Tooth and lurid regeneration is based on tissue technology enquiry, which aims to rebuild lost body parts and organs.

The "edifice blocks" of molar and pulp regeneration are stalk cells, substances (factors) for increasing the growth of the new lurid, and a matrix or scaffold for the cells to grow on. In the future, these strategies volition help to generate new pulp for a dead tooth.

Some research is showing that pulp tissue can be regrown fifty-fifty in the absence of a scaffold or matrix [4]. It is as well possible that new research will eventually allow the regeneration of non just the pulp, but likewise the hard, outer beat out of the tooth as well! When this approach is prepare to be used in patients, it will be a major advancement in the electric current treatment strategies.

Conclusion: Good News for Damaged Teeth!

With such promising approaches for regenerating tooth pulp, it will be possible give a patient a new, vital molar to replace a lost or damaged tooth. This new tooth would perform all the functions of a vital tooth. With further advancements in regenerative endodontics and 3D press, it will be possible to produce teeth in various shapes and forms that will exist clones of the missing teeth!

Author Contributions

GO, KJ, and HA were involved in design, literature research, writing, and submission of the manuscript.

Glossary

Regeneration: ↑ The process of total healing after an injury.

Vital Lurid Therapy: ↑ Treatment which aims to preserve and maintain pulp tissue that has been injured merely not fully destroyed and bring information technology back to a live healthy country.

Non-vital Pulp Therapy: ↑ Treatment involving total removal of the pulp and filling of the culvert with a suitable material to maintain the tooth in a not-infected country.

Endodontics: ↑ In Greek, Endo means "inside" and Odont means "molar." It is the dental specialty concerned with the study and treatment of the dental pulp.

Conflict of Interest Argument

The authors declare that the inquiry was conducted in the absenteeism of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed every bit a potential disharmonize of interest.

References

[1] ↑ Athanasiadou, E., Paschalidou, Thousand., Theocharidou, A., Kontoudakis, N., Arapostathis, K., and Bakopoulou, A. 2022. Biological interactions of a calcium silicate based cement (Biodentine™) with stalk cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth. Dent. Mater. 34:1797–813. doi: 10.1016/j.dental.2018.09.014

[ii] ↑ Dhar, Five., Marghalani, A. A., Crystal, Y. O., Kumar, A., Ritwik, P., Tulunoglu, O., et al. 2022. Use of vital pulp therapies in chief teeth with deep caries lesions. Pediatr. Dent. 39:146–59.

[iii] ↑ Asgary, Due south., Fazlyab, M., and Nosrat, A. 2022. Regenerative endodontic treatment versus upmost plug in immature teeth: three-year follow-upwards. J. Clin. Pediatr. Dent. xl:356–60. doi: ten.17796/1053-4628-40.five.356

[4] ↑ Janjić, Yard., Cvikl, B., Moritz, A., and Agis, H. 2022. Dental pulp regeneration. Int. J. Stomatol. Occl. Med. eight:1–9. doi: ten.1007/s12548-015-0139-1

[5] ↑ Itoh, Y., Sasaki, J. I., Hashimoto, M., Katata, C., Hayashi, M., and Imazato, Southward. 2022. Pulp regeneration by 3-dimensional dental pulp stem cell constructs. J. Dent. Res. 97:1137–43. doi: 10.1177/0022034518772260