War Lord
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It just gets worse for English and their teeth.
- Thread starter War Lord
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Ultrasound device studied for growing teeth
Susan Ruttan, Edmonton Journal
Published: Tuesday, June 27, 2006
It won’t do much for Ryan Smyth, but ultrasound may have a new role — growing teeth.
A team of University of Alberta researchers is seeking a U.S. patent on a tiny device that will sit inside the mouth and beam ultrasound waves at teeth.
That won’t do much for Smyth, the Edmonton Oiler who lost three teeth in the hockey playoffs.
But it may prevent tooth damage that can occur from wearing braces.
And it may do much more than that.
The research team envisages bandages embedded with tiny ultrasound machines that may some day be wrapped around broken legs to help the bone heal more quickly.
The idea originated with Dr. Tarek El-Bialy, an Egyptian-born orthodontist who joined the university’s faculty of dentistry a year ago.
El-Bialy has shown in earlier research that ultrasound waves — the high frequency sound waves normally used for diagnostic imaging such as looking at unborn babies still in their mothers — actually help bones to heal and tooth material to grow.
“I was using ultrasound to stimulate bone formation after lower-jaw lengthening in rabbits,” El-Bialy said in an interview. To his surprise, not only did he help heal the rabbits’ jaws after the surgery, but their teeth started to grow as well.
He later did a human study to see if ultrasound could prevent damage to the roots of teeth when people wear braces. Braces force the teeth to move, and that can cause root damage.
That study, published in 2004, showed that a tooth getting a daily shot of ultrasound was protected from damage, and in fact had more dental tissue than before.
“The problem was that the ultrasound device we were using was very big, and the patient had to hold it in his mouth for 20 minutes every day,” El-Bialy said.
When he moved to the U of A, he joined forces with two members of the engineering faculty, Prof. Jie Chen and Prof. Ying Tsui, to design an ultrasound machine small enough to sit inside a person’s mouth.
Health writer Susan Ruttan will have a full report on the ultrasound device in Wednesday’s Journal.
Susan Ruttan, Edmonton Journal
Published: Tuesday, June 27, 2006
It won’t do much for Ryan Smyth, but ultrasound may have a new role — growing teeth.
A team of University of Alberta researchers is seeking a U.S. patent on a tiny device that will sit inside the mouth and beam ultrasound waves at teeth.
That won’t do much for Smyth, the Edmonton Oiler who lost three teeth in the hockey playoffs.
But it may prevent tooth damage that can occur from wearing braces.
And it may do much more than that.
The research team envisages bandages embedded with tiny ultrasound machines that may some day be wrapped around broken legs to help the bone heal more quickly.
The idea originated with Dr. Tarek El-Bialy, an Egyptian-born orthodontist who joined the university’s faculty of dentistry a year ago.
El-Bialy has shown in earlier research that ultrasound waves — the high frequency sound waves normally used for diagnostic imaging such as looking at unborn babies still in their mothers — actually help bones to heal and tooth material to grow.
“I was using ultrasound to stimulate bone formation after lower-jaw lengthening in rabbits,” El-Bialy said in an interview. To his surprise, not only did he help heal the rabbits’ jaws after the surgery, but their teeth started to grow as well.
He later did a human study to see if ultrasound could prevent damage to the roots of teeth when people wear braces. Braces force the teeth to move, and that can cause root damage.
That study, published in 2004, showed that a tooth getting a daily shot of ultrasound was protected from damage, and in fact had more dental tissue than before.
“The problem was that the ultrasound device we were using was very big, and the patient had to hold it in his mouth for 20 minutes every day,” El-Bialy said.
When he moved to the U of A, he joined forces with two members of the engineering faculty, Prof. Jie Chen and Prof. Ying Tsui, to design an ultrasound machine small enough to sit inside a person’s mouth.
Health writer Susan Ruttan will have a full report on the ultrasound device in Wednesday’s Journal.
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