GROUND BONES

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 May 1937, Page 10

GROUND BONES

FOR DENTAL CAVITIES. A powder made of ground bones of sheep and cattle has been used successfully to generate new bone in cavities of diseased human jawbones, and to make teeth loosened by disease sound again, according to Dr Frank E. Beube, a member of the clinical staff of the Columbia. University School of Dental and Oral Surgery. The ground bone powder is sterilised by boiling. It is placed in bone lesions caused by disease or packed around bone surfaces which it is necessary to enlarge. The local supply of calcium provided by the powder stimulates the growth of the new bone. Test cases have been conducted under control conditions so that results from using the ground bone could be compared with those produced when no power was used in identical situations. These tests have proved the effectiveness of the bone powder treatment, Dr. Beube reported. Dr. Beube, working with Dr. Herbert F. Silvers, also of the clinical staff, began experiments with the powder in 1932. They worked with pathological conditions in dogs’ jawbones, which are also found commonly in human jaws. * Boiled powdered bone was inserted into cavities in the bones around the roots of the dogs’ tooth. Examinations three to nine weeks after the treatments disclosed (hat new bone had grown in the cavities. When the treatments were omitted, the cavities became filled with fibrous tissue and showed no new bone for mation.

“It. seemed evident from/the work on the dogs,” Dr. Beube said, “that similar results could be hoped for by using the bone powder in lesions of the jawbones of human patients.’’ FOURTEEN PERSONS TREATED. The first treatments in human cases were given about two years iigo. Since then fourteen men and women, suffering from four distinct types of dental trouble, have been treated. In one type, removal of the soft tissues around a loose tooth revealed that the inter-dental bone had been destroyed by pyorrhoea. Probing also revealed a deep pocket beneath the tooth. ' After the bone powder had been placed around the tooth, time was allowed for healing. Then according to Dr. Beube’s account: “The pocket became oblitearted, there was no mobility of the teeth, and the inter-dental bone was restored as high as the middle level of the tooth.” In another case, two teeth, one on each side of the upper , jaw, had to be removed because of bone destrutcion around their roots. Powder was then placed in the left socket, but not in the right. Examination after six months revealed denser bone in the socket which had been treated. Other tests were conducted in cases in which large cysts, bubble-like masses of infected tissue which form in the jawbones, had been removed from both the upper and lower jaws. Again bone powder resulted in generation of new bone.

This experiment was checked by Dr. Beube. who treated one case in which cysts had been removed from the bases of two teeth in the same jawbone. Bono powder was used to fill one cavity. Only the cavity treated with the powder showed saisfactory improvement.

In another case, a toothless patient was unable to wear false teeth. X-rays disclosed that instead of the normal bony ridgo on the jawbone there was a “knifelike” ridge covered with flexible fibrous tissue which could he moved io and fro. This provided a poor base for a. dental plate. Dr. Beube saw that the bony ridge would have to ho .strengthened. He lamed the soft tissue, and packed the rone powder around the rijXge. An X-ray fifteen months later showed the ridgo had become almost normal in size; the treatment had quadrupled its thickness. What had boon soft fibrous tissue had now become firm because of tlm new bone. The patient was able to use false teeth comfortably.

The bone powder has been used by Dr. Beube only in dental cases. He thinks it mav be possible to generate new bone in other parts of tho body by similar treatment. ,