Tooth extractions may be necessary in some cases, but rapid bone loss may follow. Currently, dentists don’t have any solutions for long-term preservation of alveolar bone. Yet high-frequency acceleration (HFA) has been shown to have an osteogenic effect on healthy alveolar bone.
A recent study from the New York University College of Dentistry, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and Institute Polytechnic of Viseu, Portugal, explored whether HFA could preserve alveolar bone after extraction without negatively affecting wound healing.
The researchers divided 85 adult rats into control, static, and HFA groups and extracted the maxillary right third molar from each. The HFA group received HFA via devices that applied vibrations through the second molar for 5 minutes a day. The static group received the same magnitude of static load. The control group did not receive any stimulation.
Samples were collected on days zero, 7, 14, 28, and 56 for fluorescence microscopy, microcomputer tomography, histology, RNA, and protein analyses. HFA increased bone volume in the extraction site and surrounding alveolar bone by 44% compared to the static group while fully preserving alveolar bone height and width during the long term.
These effects were accompanied by increased expression of osteogenic markers and intramembranous bone formation and by decreased expression of osteoclastic markers and bone resorbtion activity, in addition to decreased expression of many inflammatory markers.
The researchers concluded that HFA is a noninvasive and safe treatment that could be used to prevent alveolar bone loss and/or accelerate bone healing after extraction. The study, “High-Frequency Acceleration: Therapeutic Tool to Preserve Bone Following Tooth Extractions,” was published by the Journal of Dental Research.
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