• FaceDeer
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    266 months ago

    Important to note that the initial form of this treatment is to trigger the growth of teeth that failed to grow in the first place, at least last I read about it. An important first step, but for now it may be dependent on there being an existing “tooth bud” down in the jaw to get going.

    I suspect that in the long run we’ll need to figure out how to implant a new tooth bud, probably made using the patient’s stem cells, to grow replacements for teeth that have been lost later in life.

    • @cowfodder@lemmy.world
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      86 months ago

      Doing this from memory, but I think there was a paper a few years back proposing using stem cells in an implanted calcium lattice. Basically an artificial implant that would grow into an actual rooted tooth.

    • @Foreigner@lemmy.world
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      16 months ago

      Would this work for microdontia? I have two front teeth that failed to grow to the proper size and one of them has a very small root, meaning a crown is not an option and I don’t want to get implants.

      • FaceDeer
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        16 months ago

        No idea, I’m just repeating caveats I’ve seen raised on this particular news before.