Today's Dental News

Advances in technology and communications mean that patients are reachable almost anywhere. Patient communication tools are giving practices the means to engage and activate patients in entirely new ways. Combined, they help increase patient loyalty, encourage patients to follow treatment paths, attend appointments on time, pay their bills promptly and even encourage them to refer their friends. These tools solve many of the challenges practices are experiencing and offer patient engagement and business growth opportunities.

A holy grail of practice management is found in successfully maintaining the highest quality of patient care while keeping a strong hand on operational and financial performance, another hand on bringing in new patients and another hand on making timely and relevant new products and services available.

If only we had three sets of hands.

Read more: Research Report: Insights to Improved Practice Success

A new treatment claims to end gum disease for sufferers in just five hours using a gentle gum stretching technique.

BOST—Bone one session treatment—lasts four to five hours and involves pushing back the gums to reach the root of the tooth.

Gum disease, the primary cause of tooth loss, affects up to 50 percent of the population with often irreversible consequences.

Early signs of infection are swollen or bleeding gums, bad breath and sensitivity. Known as gingivitis, if caught early the condition is easily treated with professional cleaning.

Read more: New Treatment Offers Help for Gum Disease Sufferers

The Food and Drug Administration is telling three companies that sell mouthwash products to stop saying things about their products that aren’t supported by facts.

The FDA sent letters to Johnson & Johnson, CVS Corp. and Walgreen Co., all of which claim their products are effective in preventing gum disease—a statement that isn’t true.

These warnings from the FDA are latest from President Barack Obama’s administration in an initiative to cut down on companies making false claims about their products.

The US laws state that a company cannot claim that its product is successful in treating a disease unless the claim is backed up by the FDA.

Read more: FDA Tells Companies to Stop False Claims

A new approach to anchor teeth back in the jaw using stem cells has been developed and successfully tested in the laboratory for the first time by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The new strategy represents a potential major advance in the battle against gum disease, a serious infection that eventually leads to tooth loss. About 80 percent of US adults suffer from gum disease, according to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

Researchers in UIC’s Brodie Laboratory for Craniofacial Genetics used stem cells obtained from the periodontal ligament of molars extracted from mice, expanded them in an incubator, and then seeded them on barren rat molars. The stem cell-treated molars were reinserted into the tooth sockets of rats.

Read more: Technique to Reattach Teeth Using Stem Cells Developed