July 18, 2013

Are you suffering from a painful tooth but avoiding visiting the dentist because you don’t want to hear the news that you need root canal therapy?  Today, the staff at El Reno Family Dentistry wants to share news about a scientific research study that may be of interest to you. According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, currently many scientists are developing a way to use stem cells to regenerate tooth tissue for better dental care.

Root canal therapy is used to restore a tooth that has decay that reached the inner pulp, resulting in an often painful infection. Traditionally this is accomplished by removing the decay, replacing it with a dental filling, and capping the tooth with a crown. The tooth will be restored but is now ‘dead’ inside because you’ve just removed all the living tissue.

What the scientists are working on is a way to get teeth stem cells to regrow dental pulp. This could then be placed inside the infected tooth, allowing it to function like a healthy tooth once again. The pulp tissue helps to detect future infections, so this would provide a even higher-quality dental restoration than the technology that currently exists.

If you have a tooth that is infected, we can help with root canal therapy. Please give us a call to stop the discomfort and allow us to restore your tooth to health. We hope that in the future, this important dental research will be translated into a new way of performing root canal therapy that will result in even healthier teeth.

Interested in learning more about general dentistry or scheduling your next appointment? Call us today at El Reno Family Dentistry. Our office is located in El Reno and serves patients from El Reno, Yukon, Minco, Calumet, Hinton, and other communities in the Canadian County.