subject: Dealing With Periodontal Disease [print this page] Annually, Americans lose as much as 30 million teeth because of periodontal disease. In a situation like this, the hard tissue of the jaws is exposed due to plaque fosters bacteria that eat away gums.
The bone in the jaws then decays and recedes, allowing the tooth to work loose. It is a new material known as HTR polymer that the dentists are relying on as a way to stop this process. What works for them in this case is gritting their patients' teeth.
What several periodontists on the East Coast have been doing for nine years now is packing HTR polymer into the gaps that occur between the teeth and the diseased jaws. When it comes to this polymer, there are tiny porous plastic beads coated with a calcium compound that bolster jaw ridges as denture anchors and prevents jaw deterioration where a tooth has been removed.
A New York periodontist says that they've tried all sorts of fillers, human bones, animal bones, plaster of Paris. In this case, none of these have been working as consistently.
The new materials manufacturer claims that the product can save a lot of teeth, millions even, according to a company spokesman. But some experts in the field are skeptical about HTR, as they were about various ceramics and metal pins that preceded it.
As mentioned by the official of the American Dental Association's council on materials and instruments, no jury will be present here. Nowadays, there is still no product that is able to stimulate bone growth. Based from the results of a recent company backed survey of 64 dentists, periodontists, and oral surgeons, there are 647uses for the material out of which 64 are successful.
When it comes to the failures, these occurred during the attempt to save teeth loosened by periodontal disease. New York clinics and clinics in the surrounding areas experimentally used HTR long before the Food and Drug Administration approval was received in 1983. It is a 98 percent success rate in more than 4,000 uses worldwide that the material has been able to achieve according to the company.
Considering the results and the material itself, since these have not been forwarded to the dental association they have no official position. In terms of the material, the company hopes that it will gain acceptance nationwide.
Aside from being negatively charged, it is biologically compatible, nonreabsorbable, and hydrophilic so it can take up water. It is possible to count HTR as the ideal grafting material.
Although HTR works simply, he adds that it also works mysteriously. Normally injected in the corroded space around the tooth are the small granules that serve as a sort of scaffolding around which new bone material can collect and grow.
Due to the hydrophilic nature of the material, it is able to attract wet bone marrow cells and the negative charge holds them there and stimulates growth. For the material to be able to integrate with the bone, calcium is important.
For this man, he was once the head of dental research at a medical school in New York and he is no longer satisfied with stopping with teeth.
Anywhere it is needed, HTR which stands for hard tissue replacement should work according to him. What they were already able to do was a considerable amount of work on the spinal fusion and in the treatment of bone fractures. You can use HTR as a complete bone replacement considering that it is properly molded.
