Good news for people who are afraid to go under the drill at the dentist. Researchers at King’s College London have come up with a way to replace tooth drilling at the dentist with a new treatment that helps decaying teeth repair themselves.
Good news for people who are afraid to go under the drill at the dentist.
Researchers at King’s College London have come up with a way to replace tooth drilling at the dentist with a new treatment that helps decaying teeth repair themselves.
Currently, dentists fix decaying teeth by drilling out the infected part and filling the cavity with an amalgam or composite resin material.
Professor Nigel Pitts, from King’s College London’s Dental Institute is quoted as saying: "Not only is our device kinder to the patient and better for their teeth, but it’s expected to be at least as cost-effective as current dental treatments."
The new treatment, called Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation, is painless and noninvasive.
It involves applying a calcium and phosphate mineral cocktail and sending an electrical current to the decaying tooth to force the minerals deeper into the cavity.
The treatment might be made commercially available in the next three years, because the researchers have created a firm called Reminova based in Perth, Scotland to set up private funding for their project to get off the ground.
