Application of Nano Diamond in Root Canal Treatment Technology

Recently, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) school of dentistry has made use of artificial nano diamond to greatly improve the root canal treatment technology, bringing the Gospel for the majority of dental disease patients.

The study has been published in the journal ACS Nano. Diamond nanoparticles are smaller than human hair about thousands of times, which are by-products from synthetic diamond through the process of refining and other processing. They are widely used in dental, cancer treatment, imaging, regenerative medicine and other fields.

In the United States, more than fifteen million patients receive root canal therapy to prevent dental pulp infection each year. The dental pulp is part of the teeth, including blood vessel and nerve tissue. In the process of root canal treatment, the infected dental pulp needs to be pushed out, and the gutta-percha polymer material will fill the free space. Gutta-percha will not react easily with tooth tissues, so it is often used for root canal filling material. If the infected dental pulp is not completely clear, the residual part will affect the whole teeth and cause tooth loss.

But gutta-percha polymer materials also have some drawbacks. For example, the ability preventing dental infection resistance is insufficient, and it has low hardness.

In order to overcome these defects, the UCLA team test the two kinds of enhanced gutta-percha: One is nano diamond enhanced cortex eucommiae glue; Another is the antibiotics preloading of nano diamond enhanced gutta-percha.

To test the performance of first gutta-percha, Sue Vin Kim and Adelheid Nerisa Limansubroto fill nano diamond gutta-percha in patients’ teeth. By means of X-ray and CT, the staff finds that there is still a gap after filling teeth, which is the main cause of bacterial infections. And CT imaging proves that the filling effect of this enhanced material and traditional gutta-percha is the same.

In the second phase of this experiment, the staff uses the preloading broad spectrum antibiotics - amoxicillin nano diamond enhanced gutta-percha. The experimental results show that if this enhanced nano diamond can combine with gutta-percha, it will effectively prevent bacterial growth and tooth infection.

Laboratory postdoctor Dong - Keun Lee says, drug-induced nano diamond enhanced gutta-percha has many superior performance, and it can not only enhance the hardness of root canal filling material, but also effectively prevent bacterial infection.

This new type of dental technology is a combination of materials science, nanotechnology, drug delivery, toxicology, oral radiology, pulp epidemiology, microbiology, and many other fields, which is reforming the existing dental medical technology development, and has a broad prospect in clinical trials in the future.

The study obtained the support from National Cancer Institute, National Science Foundation, Wallace H. Coulter funds, Cancer Research Fund and Beckman Coulter Life Science Institutions.