Regenerative Dentistry Breakthrough: Biological Therapy for Damaged Teeth | Hacker News Reader

Regenerative Dentistry Breakthrough: Biological Therapy for Damaged Teeth

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111 pointselorant11 comments

Both in mice and in humans. Link to the original paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18512-7

also, a possibly related thing from a couple years ago, replacing root canals with stem cell magic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7252950

Seems like a lot of skepticism from the non-experts, coming from a perspective of confusing promising research with new products on the horizon.

Dentist here, in terms of replacing root canals. The technique described in the paper would not replace the nerves and blood vessels in the root canal system.

It just shows a new method for sealing off the root canal system - via a blood clot.

Unfortunately you would still need to have the root canal treatment - just the sealing may be slightly quicker with this method.

The quality obturation (apical seal) doesn’t really effect the clinical outcome o of root canal so unlikely will mean better outcomes either.

this is awesome, but things like it have been reported before (much like "x kills cancer cells"... it's hard to take at face value).

is there an easy to understand way in which this report is different?

i really want to see real-world adoption/success on main street! Press releases (or even the articles they tout) are just so much fluff, and become meaningless.

Dentist here. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but regenerative dentistry is still some time away.

The linked article describes that they have discovered new pathways in the development cycle of teeth. (Akin to learning how something complex like your fingers develop from a fetal cell mass.)

This is a great start for sure and vital research.

But still some way before we are able to turn these developments into something actionable in a clinical setting.

What kind of time frame do you think we're looking at for 3d printed gum tissue? My understanding is that the issue is with the collagen matrix that bonds the tissue to the teeth.

It seems like that sort of material is very amenable to 3d printing.

I’m fortunate to have pretty good teeth (or so claim my dentists) but this is great to see developments in. There is the long-standing piece of advice that many people give of “take care of your teeth” and for many people that’s just an out-of-reach option either monetarily or genetically. For folks in the future to be able to care for their teeth despite damage would be great. And if teeth can be cared for such that the need for dentures is removed then people would not need to face the issues associated with using those either.

If I understand correctly: We may get a revolutionary dental treatment that will become available years after I die, for about the cost of a new car.

Does it say anything about the cost or the timeline? Either you don’t have much longer left to live or it’s 20/30+ years away according to you?

>Does it say anything about the cost or the timeline?

Nope. I'm anecdotally basing it on past medical-study-to-realization timelines, which typically last decades-to-never

>Either you don’t have much longer left to live

I don't know how much longer I have to live.

> it’s 20/30+ years away according to you?

30+ years is a reasonable estimate. Never is another one.

This isn't the silver diamine fluoride (https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/tooth-decay-fixed-with...) news.

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