The effectiveness and safety of treating dentine hypersensitivity with bioactive glasses

牙本质过敏症是一种常见的牙科疾病，暴露的牙本质对刺激产生剧烈疼痛，而这些刺激不能归因于任何其他牙科疾病。它非常普遍，影响了多达69%的英国人口，并对生活质量产生了重大影响。通过用脱敏牙膏刷牙来封闭开放的牙本质小管是一种常见但有效的方法，可以快速缓解牙周炎。在口腔环境中降解并沉淀磷灰石的生物活性玻璃被认为是有益的，并已被引入牙膏，例如GSK的Novamin(45S5 Bioglass)用于Sensodyne的生物活性玻璃，Biomin Technologies Ltd的Biomin F的含氟生物活性玻璃。扫描电子显微镜观察开放的牙本质小管顶部形成的磷灰石，已知有助于长期缓解疼痛。尽管人们在模拟生物活性玻璃的磷灰石形成和矿化的牙齿组织的化学溶解方面付出了大量努力，包括最近出色的4D同步X射线断层扫描(XCT)研究，该研究表明了监测牙本质小管大小和脱矿深度的变化的能力。然而，到目前为止，我们对牙本质小管中的生物活性玻璃颗粒如何与小管壁相互作用，生物活性玻璃开放的小管大小和闭塞深度如何随时间变化，管周和管间的矿物质密度如何变化，生物活性玻璃对牙髓的长期安全性还缺乏足够的了解。因此，本项目旨在1)利用X射线断层扫描技术更好地了解生物活性眼镜治疗牙本质过敏症的有效性，2)评估生物活性眼镜对牙髓的安全性3)最终开发一种新的干预措施，不仅安全，而且还能有效地治疗牙本质过敏症，以改善口腔健康。

Dentine hypersensitivity (DH) is a commonly occurring dental condition where sharp pain derived from exposed dentine in response to stimuli that cannot be ascribed to any other dental diseases. It is highly prevalent affecting up to 69% of the UK population and has a significant impact on the quality of life. Occlusion of open dentine tubules by brushing teeth with a desensitising toothpaste is a common but effective method that offers a quick alleviation of DH. Bioactive glasses that degrade in oral environment and precipitate apatite were thought to be beneficial, and have been introduced to toothpastes, e.g. Novamin (45S5 Bioglass) for Sensodyne by GSK, fluoride containing bioactive glass for BioMin F by BioMin Technologies Ltd. Apatite formation on top of open dentine tubules were evident by SEM and known to contribute towards long term pain relief.Although considerable effort has been spent on modelling apatite formation of bioactive glasses and the chemical dissolution of mineralised dental tissues including a recent outstanding 4D synchrotron X-ray tomography (xCT) study showing the capacity of monitoring changes in dentine tubule size and demineralisation depth. However, to date we have insufficient understanding of how bioactive glass particles within dentine tubules interact with tubule walls, how the open tubule size and occlusion depth by bioactive glasses change with time and how mineral density of peritubular and intertubular dentine change, the long-term safety of bioactive glass on dental pulp. Therefore, this project aims to 1) better understand the effectiveness of treating dentine hypersensitivity with bioactive glasses using X-ray tomography 2) evaluate the safety of bioactive glasses on dental pulp 3) ultimately develop a new intervention that not safely but also effectively treat dentine hypersensitivity for better Oral Health.