Goodbye, Fillings
Dental fillings may soon be left in the ash
heap of history, thanks to a recent discovery about a drug called
Tideglusib. Developed for and trialled to treat Alzheimer’s disease, the
drug also happens to promote the natural tooth regrowth mechanism, allowing the tooth to repair cavities.
Tideglusib works by stimulating stem cells
in the pulp of teeth, the source of new dentine. Dentine is
the mineralized substance beneath tooth enamel that gets eaten away by
tooth decay.
Teeth can naturally regenerate dentine
without assistance, but only under certain circumstances. The pulp must
be exposed through infection (such as decay) or trauma to prompt the
manufacture of dentine. But even then, the tooth can only regrow a very
thin layer naturally—not enough to repair cavities caused by decay,
which are generally deep. Tideglusib changes this outcome because it
turns off the GSK-3 enzyme, which stops dentine from forming.
In the research,
the team inserted small, biodegradable sponges made of collagen soaked
in Tideglusib into cavities. The sponges triggered dentine growth and
within six weeks, the damage was repaired. The collagen structure of the
sponges melted away, leaving only the intact tooth.
Thus far, the procedure has only been used
in mouse teeth. Yet as King’s College London Dental Institute Professor
and lead author Paul Sharpe told The Telegraph, “Using
a drug that has already been tested in clinical trials for Alzheimer’s
disease provides a real opportunity to get this dental treatment quickly
into clinics.”
He added, “The simplicity of our approach
makes it ideal as a clinical dental product for the natural treatment of
large cavities, by providing both pulp protection and restoring
dentine.”
References:
The Telegraph, Nature
