Plasma Jets Could Replace Dental Drills 131
Hugh Pickens writes "The first electric dental drill was patented in 1875; modern drills grind the diseased portions of teeth away at up to 500,000 rpm. But dentists have been seeking less invasive ways of wiping out stubborn, tooth-decaying bacteria. Now Live Science reports that bacteria-killing jets of plasma could soon replace the drills used to treat cavities in our teeth. Researchers recently demonstrated that a small, blowtorch-like device emitting a relatively cool beam of purple plasma could eliminate oral bacteria in cavities, leaving more tooth structure intact than a drill does. To test how well 'cold' plasma jets (about 100F or 38C) sterilize tooth material, researchers took slices of dentin from extracted human molars, doused them with bacteria, and torched them with the plasma jet. An inspection via a scanning electron microscope of the damage done to the germs shows bacterial remnants had holes in their cell walls. When the plasma jet fires, it charges oxygen in the surrounding air, creating highly reactive molecules that can break down the bacteria's defenses. Researchers believe the technique could be available to general dentistry in three to five years."
Guys, I need this ASAP (Score:5, Funny)
"Researchers believe the technique could be available to general dentistry in three to five years."
COME ON, guys, my appointment is on the 22nd. Hurry!
Sorry, we're open! (Score:4, Funny)
http://adsoftheworld.com/files/images/dunecdentistopen.jpg
We should've had them by now (Score:2, Insightful)
/. had an article about very similar research about 4 years ago [slashdot.org]...
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Even if it works, it doesn't need to show up at your dentist. Carisolv apparently worked, too, and yet our teeth still get drilled.
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Don't rush them or the first models will emit an ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmminous hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
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Speaking of hums, I've been seeing a laser dentist.
I absolutely hate injections and drills, but he was able to do my fillings with no pain, no discomfort, no injections or painkillers. I highly recommend them. I'd never go back to a tooth-grinder again.
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There's a "laser dentistry" place down the road from me. I considered it because it sounds awesome.
I've seen Space Mutiny [tvtropes.org], so it sounds hilarious.
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You mean like this [schlockmercenary.com]?
right... (Score:1)
Re:right... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:right... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Different clinicians practice to different standards and use differing treatment standards and different diagnostic methods. A dentist using the older standard probe and X-ray technique will miss more, using new digital radiography and new diagnostic aids more will be found. Many small caries can remain sub-clinical for decades or even unmineralized and get smaller or they can grow explosively. Sometimes the "caries" are caused by physical traumas like abfraction [wikipedia.org] due to bruxism [wikipedia.org], clenching and other parafunctional habits. Unfortunately there can be differences based on economic considerations as well.
Standards of what is a cavity (Score:5, Informative)
I recently went after many years, and the dentist found three. I was a little suspicious, and asked the dentist about it. He said yes, due to advanced digital x-rays, cavities are spotted earlier. The more important fact was that he said with newer filling techniques and material, it allows them to fill smaller cavities. The older fillings didn't "take" that well in teeth, and so dentists had to let cavities grow largert, so they could fill them successfully. So the up to date, modern dentist will probably find these "mini-cavities" and fill them before it becomes a giant cavity.
Why do this then? Well one of my older style fillings was in a tooth that was weak, which cracked in half, and I needed a root canal and crown. The newer mini-fillings will keep more of the tooth, preventing problems like that in the future.
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Just because they say there is a cavity doesn't mean there is one. A younger dentist insisted I had three cavities that needed filling. No x-rays, just based on the pressure test (where they push down on your teeth with a probe), where the dentist pushed down much harder than standards from several other dentists.
I changed dentists. He used x-rays and the pressure test and concluded no cavities. I mentioned what the other dentist said and he said no, no evidence of even smaller cavities. Since I was a
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I was shown the radiographs (Score:2)
Ahh -that's the kicker.My dentist had a screen right next to the chair showing me where the carries were. Digital x-rays are quite nice, as the images can be blown up to show you where the problem lies. Mine was easy to spot.
I concur - ask to see the images. If you're at all concerned, then get a second opinion. No one is holding you in that chair.
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Digital x-rays are nothing more than a small sensor connected to a computer by USB. As a bonus, they use much less X-ray radiation than the old film.
If your dentist isn't using this technology by now (mine has for almost 10 years), then you need to switch dentists. There's no reason to stick with someone who's too cheap or stubborn to get out of the dark ages of dentistry. Same goes for anyone using those horrible old mercury-filled fillings.
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Likely because all the antiseptics killed the normal "good bacteria" in your mouth. Very much like our skin and intestines, there are bacteria which is supposed to be there.
If you want to find out more about teeth vs general health. Look up Weston Price's (a dentist) world-wide research for an eye-opener about dental (and general) health:
http://www.westonaprice.org/Nutrition-and-Physical-Degeneration-by-Weston-A.-Price.html [westonaprice.org]
Re:right... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:right... (Score:5, Funny)
He said for deeper work they use a laser.
That sounds awesome, but I'm a bit confused: how do they fit the whole shark inside your mouth?
Re:right... (Score:4, Funny)
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The shark doesn't have to be in your mouth, it just has to have good aim.
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Re:right... (Score:5, Interesting)
The drills really aren't that bad, assuming that the dentist doesn't botch it. No new technology can be expected to solve poor technique or accidents.
Actually, the way I understood this is that plasma is used to disinfect the dentin, instead of mechanically drilling away the infected part. So there is less potential for mechanical damage as well. Some drilling is probably necessary to remove the mechanically decayed part, but there is less need to remove extra layers just in case.
Re:right... (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like yet another solution looking for a problem. The point of the drilling is to remove infected dentin and leave healthy dentin intact. When teeth decay it's a process in which bacteria are demineralizing and destroying the hard structures of the tooth. Simply killing the bacteria is not sufficient to restore the damaged structures; the damaged structures themselves must be removed, along with any undamaged structures that have been undermined by decay. Additionally, if disinfection were the only goal the decay would still need to be exposed via drilling in order to effect disinfection. As much as people hate the drills, they also provide tactile feedback as to the location of decay. Hard tissue lasers are extremely expensive relative to the drills and provide no such feedback. Visual inspection is often insufficient to determine the quality of the dentin which is why we are always poking with those sharp little explorers. Another issue is being able to determine whether or not the bacteria have all been killed. Leaving infected dentin behind means the decay will simple continue from that point. Removing all of the softened, infected dentin is necessary to prevent recurrence of decay. Incidentally, traditional dental amalgam fillings (mercury, silver and tin) are inherently somewhat antibacterial. The metal tends to inhibit bacterial growth providing a small measure of protection to recurrence. However preventative measures like good daily diet and hygiene (e.g. cutting out the sugar and brushing/flossing) is still the best means of preserving your teeth.
Other methods of disinfection have been tried and failed, hence "drill and fill" remains the most reliable method of restoration.
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Re:right... (Score:5, Informative)
As a dentist, I can comment here with some degree of authority on the subject. If a tooth has cavitated, in other words, the surface has broken, the dentin part you speak of being disinfected is a mushy mess. Even if the plasma could "disinfect" this area, the tooth would be left with a spongy core, incapable of supporting the remaining hard structure of the tooth. One of the fundamental parts of preparing a tooth is to not leave any unsupported enamel. If "infected" dentin is left, albeit bacteria free, the chance for tooth fracture is great.
I do think that this technology would work in early caries removal, such as shallow lesions. Often you don't know how deep a carious lesion will go until you open things up and start excavating decay out. At some point you will have to use some sort of mechanical process to scoop the decayed material out, either a hand instrument or a slower speed bur.
Now if you are concerned about the trade-off between exposing the pulp (nerve) and needing a root canal, or leaving a thin layer of carious dentin, this plasma approach may be good. It has been shown in research that a small layer of decay left under the proper filling, can repair itself and if small enough no root canal therapy may be necessary. The plasma may help out in disinfecting this area and help out the repair process. But I digress...
Vitamin D can help prevent tooth decay (Score:2)
It's been know since the 1930s:
http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v05n03.shtml [orthomolecular.org]
Treatment:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml [vitamindcouncil.org]
This may be an especially big problem these days in pediatric dentistry, as kids spend more and more time indoors.
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My problem with the drill isn't so much the touch factor (vibration)...it's the secondary factors, like the smell and the noise. Those can't be addressed with technique on the part of the driller.
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How about earplugs and noseplugs?
Bone makes a very good conductor of sound vibrations right to your ear. Smell maybe, though you'll still taste it, which might be much of what is actually happening anyway.
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I was not assuming what you thought. As usual, our resistance is all about us and not the thing we resist. LOL
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This reminds of the following classic AI koan:
---
In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
"What are you doing?" asked Minsky.
"I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe."
"Why is the net wired randomly?" asked Minsky.
"I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play."
Minsky shut his eyes.
"Why do you close your eyes?" Sussman asked his teacher.
"So the room will be empty."
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
Home use? (Score:5, Interesting)
Would this kind of device be useful in the bathroom? Probably not as a replacement for flossing or brushing, but fighting plaque build-ups in places you can't really get?
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I'm not sure I'd want to drill my own teeth.
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Self dentistry is a perfectly viable option.
Re:Home use? (Score:5, Funny)
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Now that was the funnyest comment I can remember
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Just make sure you are able to read the x-ray image. [youtube.com]
(Hint: 4:22)
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but fighting plaque build-ups in places you can't really get?
Chew some xylitol gum instead. It tricks the plaque's metabolism into thinking its digesting sugar and effectively starves them. It's better to kill off the bacteria than to try to repair damage (one theory of the mechanism of action for fluoride is it assists with enamel remineralization). I half-started a list of products I've found to be of decent quality here [zylitol.com]. I should get back to that with some good recipes I've worked out too...
A bit che
Hard coating? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always wondered why they haven't developed a hard coating for teeth that would prevent most cavities and why we don't have vaccination against caries and periodontal pathogens.
It often seems like the basics of dentistry have changed little. There are newer materials for crowns and tooth-colored fillings, CNC machines and 3d modeling for crowns, but AFAIK going to the dentist is little different for me now than it was 40 years ago.
I sometimes wonder if advances in preventive dentistry aren't limited by the structure and practice of dentistry itself. Plus, dentists being dentists, they have a built-in interest in high-quality preventive care (high-frequency flossing, rinses, brushing, etc) and thus themselves develop few of the chronic problems that plague the general public and thus don't devote resources to better passive preventive systems/technologies as they believe the ones available are "good enough".
In a way it kind of reminds me of the problems non-technology people have with computers that technology people don't suffer from; these issues don't really get addressed within technology itself very aggressively because to the people who don't have these issues, they aren't considered serious problems or are considered side effects of other problems (general ignorance or lack of intelligence, etc).
Re:Hard coating? (Score:5, Informative)
It exists: Dental sealant [wikipedia.org]
Re:Hard coating? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hard coating? (Score:4, Interesting)
Last time I talked to a Dentist on a related subject, he told me that that's by design - better that your natural teeth wear on the sealant/crown/whatever than that the sealant/crown/whatever be hard enough to cause wear on your remaining natural enamel.
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It's nice in that it works to some degree. But it only protects the exposed part of the tooth.
If you're a regular sugary bevarage drinker, all it takes is that one errant bit of popcorn, tortilla chips, or beef jerky between the teeth to let the soda do it's work below the gum line. If you're not a good enough flosser the effect happens much faster. You'll find yourself with the problem of an otherwise normal looking intact tooth - but with a cavity that forms just below the gumline. And who knows what gunk
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I believe there have already been successes with stem cell-based teeth regrowing.
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/. had an article [slashdot.org] about regrowing teeth in rodents. Alas, that is like 10 years off.
I want glow-in-the dark teeth:)
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Actually, forgot to say, the solution to this exists, it's known as a "console", or a "cell phone". I mean pu
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You know, I just one a several-day fight against Windows 7 insisting that 60 Hz is go
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It's been tried, doesn't work well for a large amount of people. Ever seen how "normal people" use their computer? Warning pops up "Do you want to install the RootKit ActiveX from l33th4x0rs.com?". Typical user doesn't even read it, clicks OK, keeps on browsing as if nothing happened. If you ask them what they did and why they'll go "Huh?". Because that's what they normal
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I'm talking about making configuration changes, not browsing the web. A typical user isn't going to screw around with the config settings, so he isn't going to be harmed by being able to set things up the way he wants.
It sounds to me like (Score:2)
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Like what? I've had a root canal and 3 crowns and my wisdom teeth extracted in the last 2 years.
I think some of the restorative technologies have gotten better (eg, implants, Cerac CNC-milled crowns) but the preventative technologies have not. Even stuff like wisdom tooth extraction doesn't seem very high tech.
About the only thing I really appreciate is the ability to take the Halcion/Hydroxyazine/Nitrous cocktail before major work and blank out during the experience.
Re:Hard coating? (Score:5, Interesting)
why we don't have vaccination against caries
Last I heard, one is currently in human trials. It works by replacing the bacteria responsible with a different strain that doesn't create lactic acid, and therefore doesn't cause caries.
In tests on rats, it provided a permanent solution. Here's hoping it works out for us too.
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I expect the answer to be negative, though - they'll probably see no problem in you having to get a complete mouth disinfection and bacteria placement therapy once a year. Then again, if it's cheap enough (USA)/covered b
Re:Hard coating? (Score:5, Funny)
We still need to brush our teeth to avoid calculus buildup and bad breath
Rationally speaking, brushing a minima of three times a day is integral to good oral hygeine.
rimshot();
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Apparently they are genetically engineered to be dominant, and thus cause the naturally occurring bacteria to die off.
I would love being able to brush less, i haven't found any toothpaste without a strong minty taste... A taste that wakes you up when you try to brush your teeth at night, and when you do it in the morning it leaves a strong taste in your mouth for hours that ruins any food/drink you try to consume.
They're not all minty... (Score:2)
A lot of toothpastes made for children are fruit-flavored, and Tom's of Maine (http://www.tomsofmaine.com) makes a few non-minty flavors. Also try your local natural foods store - they probably have some wacky flavors.
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Tom's of Maine makes a strawberry flavored kid's toothpaste. It was a little weird using a non-minty toothpaste. You could also try making your own toothpaste and giving it whatever flavor you like.
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"I have some good news and some bad news..."
"Well, what's the good news?"
"We've been feeding the rats a diet of pure sucrose and
Great! (Score:1)
Or maybe not..
Just don't cross the streams (Score:3, Funny)
It could unleash a whole evil dental underworld.
Makes me wonder (Score:5, Funny)
Do you ever wonder how they think up this stuff. Some researcher is sitting around drinking coffee thinking, "Hey, I wonder what would happen if you blasted a cavity with plasma?" How do you even think of questions like that without being stoned?
Then I started wondering if I'm going to be hearing my dentist going, "Pew! Pew! Pew!"
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I would guess that you pretty much nailed it, except the guy was probably already obsessed with cavities and came across some information about low temperature plasma.
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What makes you think they weren't stoned...?
Speaking as a scientist, I think that's an untested hypothesis.
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Do you ever wonder how they think up this stuff. Some researcher is sitting around drinking coffee thinking, "Hey, I wonder what would happen if you blasted a cavity with plasma?" How do you even think of questions like that without being stoned?
I just figure they get bored with tiny knives and needles and drills, and they want to take a tiny blowtorch to us now, those sadists ;-)
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They used to pore molten lead at 622 degrees F into cavities preps.
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"How do you even think of questions like that without being stoned?"
http://www.tsmhouston.com/images/plasma-cutting.jpg [tsmhouston.com]
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"Hey, I wonder what would happen if you blasted a cavity with plasma?" How do you even think of questions like that without being stoned?
I'm assuming the researcher in question happened to have a cool plasma torch and was looking for things to do with it. It's the same instinct that leads people who've learned a new programming language to reimplement some perfectly good existing piece of software for the umpteenth time just to use the language. If you could do dentistry with code, you can bet you'd see PyDrill and JDentures on Freshmeat.
This won't replace the drill. (Score:4, Informative)
The drill isn't just for killing the bacteria inside cavities (called "caries" by dentists). The drill is used to make an undercut hole large enough to get stuffed with filling material. In doing so, it removes not only the bacteria but also the food-material that the bacteria was growing on. A plasma jet won't do either of those things, so they would still need to use a drill.
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Mod parent up. Not only that, drills are used for reshaping teeth, breaking up large impacted molars, chipping away dental cement, making waiting patients cringe, etc.
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The drill is used to make an undercut hole large enough to get stuffed with filling material.
I think the point is to kill the bacteria before they dissolve a hole big enough in your tooth to require filling. Then again I DNRTFA.
The cleaning would proceed as usual.
cavities (called "caries" by dentists).
(And by the French.)
Not the only use (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't the only use. I watched an interview with the guy who invented the cool plasma. It can be used to sterilize hands as well. You know the sterilization chamber from Star Trek, the one you enter with your clothes off after coming back from a planet and get eradiated. Well you can do that too with cool plasma.
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I read that as 'eradicated'
NOT GOOD!
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That only happens if you somehow come back from a planet while wearing red.
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NO ONE wearing red ever returns from an away mission ... fundamental fact of the universe.
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Will it come with Jolene Blalock as an option?
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3-5 years? (Score:3, Funny)
Grounding clamp (Score:2)
Where does the grounding clamp attach?
In a very enthusiastic Billy Mays voice.... (Score:2)
it charges oxygen in the surrounding air
. Wait, is oxi-clean.. plasma?
No 240Hz LED LCD could do that ! (Score:2)
Shakespeare (Score:1)
Holes in cell walls? Yay! (Score:2)
An inspection via a scanning electron microscope of the damage done to the germs shows bacterial remnants had holes in their cell walls.
I take from that, that it will also put holes it my cells’ walls.
Do. Not. Want!
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I take from that, that it will also put holes it my cells' walls.
multi-cellular organism WIN!
The bright shiny future. (Score:3, Funny)
This adds a whole new layer of meaning when your Dentist goes "Whoops!"
You Can Trust LiveScience (Score:2)
After all, a full 70% of the top ten mysteries of the mind (according to them) actually had to do with the mind.
In this little missive of theirs they make clear that we've all been mistaken thinking drills were for digging holes into materials like teeth, when all along they were intended for killing germs by digging holes into them.
As for "creating highly reactive molecules that can break down the bacteria's defenses", you can buy a quart bottle of dental drills for a dollar or less. These drills go by the
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Actually I would think anything that greatly reduces the chance of a dentist visit resulting in painful drilling would eventually work to counter the stigma associated with the profession, and maybe alleviate the "everyone hates coming to see me" depression.
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The plasma IS cool, just like the water IS wet, and the fire IS hot.
Mass Nouns are not plural.
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At this point, I'm torn between Cartman's "he he he he he he" and Nelson Muntz's "haw haw".