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Interesting. Pig enamel can be regenerated. The next step is to find out if this is applicable to human enamel. Not sure if the regenerated enamel has the same hardness as the natural enamel.

Tooth anatomy: enamel is the outermost layber in the tooth.

(HealthDay News) - A Japanese team say’s they’ve used cultured cells to grow new tooth enamel.

The breakthrough should boost efforts to produce tissue that can replace damaged or missing enamel, and possibly, even regenerate whole teeth, the researchers say.

Tooth enamel is unable to regenerate because it’s formed by a layer of cells that are lost by the time the tooth appears in the mouth. That means that wear, damage and decay take a toll on enamel over the years.

A team at the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo created a new technique of culturing cells with the capacity to produce enamel.

They found that epithelial cells taken from the developing teeth of six-month-old pigs continued to proliferate when the cells were cultured on top of special “feeder” layers of cells.

Dental follicle, aka tooth germ, consists of dental epithelium in the periphery (the future enamel) and dental mesenchymal cells in the center (the future dentin and pulp).

The scientists placed the dental epithelial cells, along with cells from the middle of the tooth (dental mesenchymal cells) on miniature collagen sponge scaffolds. The scaffolds were then placed in the abdominal cavities of rats, which provided a favorable environment for the dental cells to interact and develop.

After four weeks, enamel-like tissue formed on the scaffolds.

A report on the technique was expected to be presented March 23 at a meeting of the International Association for Dental Research.

Read more: cbc.ca

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What is the eruption sequence of baby teeth? Which tooth comes out first? Which tooth comes after? Many parents simply aren’t aware of it and yet it is very important to recognize any abnormal eruption pattern. There are several causes where a tooth will fail to erupt, such as congenital missing teeth, impacted teeth, teeth erupting in wrong directions, etc.

In addition, by recognizing the eruption of the very first tooth in the infant, parents can adopt certain preventive measures that minimize the transmission of dental cavities from themselves to their babies. Did I mention cavities can be transferred to other people? You bet! Dental caries is the most common bacterial infection in childhood, more common than any other childhood diseases or infections such as asthma, hay fever, strep throat, flu, you name it. Talk to your dentist about how to reduce the vertical transmission (parent-child transmission) and hence the risk of future cavities in your kids. If your parents have lots of cavities and so do you, blame your parents?!

The following table provides an estimated time frame for each baby tooth to come out. The time is in month.

The above time frames are only estimates. It varies among individuals. Therefore, it’s more important to recognize the eruption sequence rather than the exact eruption time. That is, central incisor > lateral incisor > 1st molar > canine > 2nd molar.

Cheat-sheet

As a general rule, lower teeth erupts before their upper counterparts. For example, lower incisors erupt before upper incisors.

The first tooth to comes out is lower central incisor at the age of 6 months.
First molar comes out during the First year of age.
Second molar comes out during the Second year of age.
By age of 3, all 20 deciduous teeth should be present.

With full eruption, babies have 20 teeth, whereas adults have 32 teeth.

First Dental Visit for Kid

When should a baby start seeing a dentist?

It’s recommended by American Academy of Pediatrics that every child should begin to receive oral health risk assessment by the age of 6 months (ie, when the first tooth starts to come out) from a pediatrician or a qualified pediatric health care professional. [Pediatrics 2003; 111:1113-1116]

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