IADR/AADR publish proceedings from Symposium on Tissue Injury and Pulp Regeneration

The International and American Associations for Dental Research (IADR/AADR) have published the proceedings from a symposium themed "Tissue Injury and Pulp Regeneration," held in Geneva, Switzerland, July 2010. The symposium was organized by the IADR Pulp Biology and Regeneration Group, and they are published in volume 23, issue 3 of the Advances in Dental Research, an E-supplement to the Journal of Dental Research.

A perspective article titled "Tissue Injury and Pulp Regeneration," was written by Gottfried Schmalz and Kerstin M. Galler, researchers at the University of Regenburg, Germany, and it's available in the July issue of the Journal of Dental Research. The perspective piece gives a brief overview of some of the manuscripts presented at the symposium.

The symposia presenters highlighted that despite the high success rate of traditional root canal therapy of up to 95% under optimal clinical conditions, the idea of pulp (and dentin) regeneration is tempting, not only from the philosophical point of view that a full healing/total recovery is the ultimate goal of medical therapy. Further reasons that regenerating a functional dental pulp would be preferable to traditional root canal therapy include the wetting of dentin, the capability of new dentin formation after caries attack, the transmission of pain as an indicator of tissue damage, and an active tissue defense mechanism against invading micro-organisms.

The new data presented and the vivid discussion at the Tissue Injury and Pulp Regeneration symposium illustrate that pulp/dentin regeneration is a highly relevant and active area of research. The elements for dental pulp engineering, namely stem cells, scaffolds and differentiation factors, are available, and the interplay among these elements needs to be evaluated further for optimized strategies. Studies, as presented in the symposium's proceedings, demonstrate proof of principle.

"We were pleased that 13 manuscripts, based on the oral presentations given at the symposia for Tissue Injury and Pulp Regeneration, are now available to the scientific community," said Gottfried Schmalz. "Those 13 manuscripts represent some of the latest research in tissue injury and pulp regeneration and they comprise this issue of the Advances of Dental Research."

Provided by International & American Associations for Dental Research