The Future of Dental Implants

Last updated on August 25th, 2018 at 04:54 pm

Students and researchers at UCLA have found that tiny nano-sized diamonds could potentially be used to help promote the growth of bone tissue. This discovery represents a promising future of dental implants.

Traditional diamond refining and mining leaves byproducts known as nanodiamonds. Shaped like tiny balls, they are 4 to 5 nanometers in diameter. Scientists and dental researchers from around the world believe that they may have figured out a way to use these nanodiamonds to not only improve bone growth, but to also battle a debilitating disease call osteonecrosis. Osteonecrosis causes bones to break down due to a reduction in blood flow.

Osteonecrosis in the jaw can lead to many sever symptoms, including the inability to eat or speak. Dental implants can become loose, or fail, due to bone loss around the implant, in a person affected by the disease.

When an implant fails, painful and expensive procedures are often required. The benefits that the implant patient had gained from the implants can be lost. Osteonecrosis in the mouth area is exceptionally challenging due to limited amount of local bone that is available to secure the titanium implant.

Traditionally, during surgery to repair the damage, the oral surgeon would insert a sponge in order to administer proteins that aid in bone growth. For example, morphogenic protein. It should be noted that these procedures are timely and expensive. Now lets look at how nanotechnology is changing the future of dental implants.

Nanodiamonds: The Future of Dental Implants

By using nanodiamonds to deliver these proteins, researchers have discovered that the procedure tends to be more effective. It appears that the nanodiamonds rapidly bond to both fibrolast growth factor and the bone morphogenetic protein. The nanodiamonds have a unique surface that allows the proteins to be in a slower fashion. This allows the treated area to be treated for an extended period of time. As an added benefit, the nanodiamonds can be given non-surgically. For example, via an oral rinse or an injection. This significantly reduces patient discomfort and costs.

These studies form the basis for the future of nanotechnology in dentistry, and the future of dental implants.

Watch the following video for more information, as Dr. Ho from UCLA explains nanodiamonds in more detail.