Search Is On For Longer Lasting Dental Composites
$2.8 million is being offered to six research projects by the National Institutes of Health in the US, in order to find a longer-lasting dental composite.
A select team of scientists for each of the six projects will be given five years worth of funding, with each team to research independently with the shared aim of discovering a dental composite with double the lifespan of current fillers.
Dentists in the US currently carry out 122 million treatments with dental composite every year. However, the average lifespan of today’s composites is less than eight years, with most replaced with a second dental composite.
The director of NIH’s, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), Martha Somerman, who along with the NIDCR and NIH is a supporter of the research, says the time is right to find an alternative. Technology and study within the areas of imagining, microbiology and chemistry have all advanced greatly over recent years. The hope is that six independent teams could discover several parts of the puzzle before bringing them together to form a solution.
A possible area to research could concern how the natural enzymes found in saliva could possible degrade composite material and lessen its strength and effect.
Preventative dentistry is one of the cheapest forms available to the public and it is hoped that the research could help patients achieve better dental health at a lower cost. Once composite fillings fail the next step are crowns, after which dentures, bridges and dental implants are the only options for the replacement of a missing tooth.
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