Gum disease or Periodontitis is the result of pockets developing between tooth roots and gum, within which minuscule food particles get trapped and bacteria flourish. Conventional treatment involve teeth scaling and root planing, which often leads to cutting the gums.
But, the new procedure, called BOST -- Bone One Session Treatment -- only involves the mouth being cleaned in one session, lasting four to five hours.
"We use a gentle gum-stretching technique to reach the root surfaces. Infected tissue is spongier and elastic, so it is possible to gently push it back manually using tiny scoop-shaped instruments known as curettes.
"The gum can then be stretched just like skin, allowing us to cleanse the infected tooth underneath. We scale and rootplane-every square millimetre of every tooth and root, as deep as any pocket reaches.
"A thin layer of dentin, the material that cements the tooth into the gum, which will have been colonised by the bacteria and impregnated with their destructive enzymes, is scraped from the root surface. This regrows," Hale clinic dentist Dr Yvan Micholt was quoted as saying. The treatment's success also depends on patients maintaining a simple, painless daily hygiene regime, using an AirPerio Kit -- a plastic handle called a perio-aid which is held like pencil and pushed up into gums to clean underneath."This stops bacterial growth by allowing oxygen to reach under the gums. Bacteria can only thrive in the absence of oxygen," Dr Micholt said.The treatment costs up to 5,000 pounds.
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