Aspirin May Lower Risk of Throat Cancer

Written by Dentistry TodayMonday, 30 July 2012 14:41



IAspirin may provide some new benefits.

A group of researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Technological Assessment concluded that aspirin may lower the risk of esophageal cancer. It accomplishes this by decreasing susceptibility to Barrett's Esophagus, a condition that affects throat cells and is probably the most significant risk factor for esophageal cancer.

Barrett's Esophagus has been rising at alarming rate during the past decade. Much of the research has been in identifying some of the early warnings of BE. Earlier studies have shown that anti-inflammatory drugs that don't contain steroids lower death rates. There's no research, however, involving the impact of taking aspiring and the risk of developing Barrett's Esophagus.

According to this study, researchers in Massachusetts discovered that patients taking aspirin were 44 percent less likely to develop Barrett's Esophagus. There were 434 patients studied. The study also indicated that men were three times as likely to develop the condition when compared to women.

The results don't suggest that people should begin to take large doses of aspirin. Aspirin, however, has been shown to reduce the risk of many illnesses as research continues. It's also not ideal for people to take aspirin with the main goal being to lower the risk of throat cancer, according to Dr. Chin Hur of Massachusetts General Hospital.

Still, many people may benefit if aspirin does, indeed, lower the risk of throat cancer.

Dental Offices in Texas Continue to Close

Written by Dentistry TodayMonday, 30 July 2012 15:47



Dentists’ offices in Texas continue to close after crackdowns on Medicaid dental payments.

Dentists who have already collected their money from the state after treating Medicaid patients are no longer accepting those patients because the dentists’ Medicaid claims are no longer being accepted. There are more than 4,300 Medicaid dentists in Texas.

Thousands of patients are impacted by this. For a point of reference, in 2010 Medicaid paid for braces on 80,000 children in Texas.

Thanks to the more stringent regulations, 91 percent of new claims are being rejected. There are even instances of children having to have their braces taken off with plenty of time left in which they should be worn.

The new Texas HHS dental director is John Roberts, who took over for the previous director after allegations of questionable Medicaid payments.

Despite the new regulations, there were supposed to be policies in place to enable children with braces to continue to receive the necessary treatment in some way or another. The problem is that if these patients are reassigned to new dentists, these patients will continue to receive the treatment that they never even needed. This will cost the state millions of dollars.

An example of this comes from All Smile Dental Centers. This company is being sued for fraud. It is now getting rid of orthodontic treatment at 13 of its clinics. The problem is 95 percent of its dental claims included some type of fraud, according to one

Stem Cell Therapy May be Capable of Treating Head, Mouth Problems

Written by Dentistry TodayWednesday, 01 August 2012 15:53



Stem cells were recently utilized to regrow craniofacial tissues. The study was the first of its kind and discovered that it was faster and more efficient than other, more conventional bone regeneration treatments.

A research team at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and the Michigan Center for Oral Health Research joined forces with Ann Arbor-based Aastrom Biosciences for this study. The clinical trial included 24 patients who needed jawbone reconstruction after some type of tooth removal.

The patients were treated with experimental tissue repair cells or a guided bone regeneration therapy. The tissue repair cells are still being developed.

This treatment is ideal for people with major defects resulting from some type of disease or trauma. The problems generally include multiple layers of tissue, making the processes to treat the issue complicated.

The benefit of stem cell research is that the patients’ own cells are utilized to regenerate tissue, as opposed to using man-made tissues.

The results from the study could be extremely beneficial. Six and 12 weeks after the cell therapy treatment, patients received dental implants. The patients who received tissue repair cells had greater bone density when compared to the patients who received conventional bone therapy. The experimental group also did not need as much bone grafting when receiving the implants.

The cells used in the therapy were taken from bone marrow in the patients’ hips. The bone marrow was processed thanks to the system Aastrom uses, which enabled various cells to grow. The stem cells were later inserted throughout the mouth and jaw.

Despite this research, this kind of stem cell treatment is still at least five years away—and more than that in all likelihood—from being put into practice. More clinical trials are necessary and it’s essential to include bigger craniofacial defects in a wide array of patients.