Biologic Materials - The next big thing in Dentistry?

  • <<
  • >>

Dentalcompare
Clinical Director

I keep coming across more and more research on the biologic side of dentistry. Not that Cone Beam CT and CAD/CAM aren't amazing technologies, but we may be on the cusp of some pretty amazing advances, especially in dental bone grafting. I have blogged before about wood, steel foam, and your own bone morphogenic proteins being used to regenerate bone. In many cases, the future of dental implants truly is dependant on this considering that you cannot place a dental implant if there is no bone.

Now researchers have found that glass can be used in this area as well. Of course, we have seen glass used before in products like Bio-Gran that use an internal silica gel surrounded by a calcium phosphate shell. Now Dr. Mona Marei, and Dr. Himanshu Jain are leading a multidiscipinary study that uses glass to form more complex shapes, rather than particles that are hard to manipulate. They are trying to find a way to form the material into a tube, a finger, or even a mandible. Check out a link to their research here, and keep an eye out for what I believe to be the next major frontier in dentistry.

Comments

-->