Needless injection of dental anesthetics

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Many dental procedures require the use of local anaesthetics. Every year 300 million cartridges of local anaesthetics are used worldwide, and the market for local anaesthetics in nearing 4 billion dollars. However, many patients, especially children, have needle phobia. Accordingly, in many dental interventions, children do not tolerate the needles and they end up being either restrained or treated under general anesthesia. This is a traumatic experience for the patient as well as a burden to healthcare costs and practitioners. Needleless injection of local anesthetics in dentistry would be a major leap forward in dentistry, especially in the management of pediatric patients. The company Idee International R & D Inc. has developed a new technology to inject medications without the use of needle injections. In this project the PI Dr Tamimi at McGill University will work with Idee International R & D Inc. to optimize the needless technology for dental applications. To do so, we will first investigate how the jet propagates through different tissues in order to control the depth of penetration. Once this information is acquired it will be easy to set-up and optimize the jet device for specific dental and craniofacial procedures. This project would benefit Canadian patients with dental diseases by providing them better and less costly treatments. It also has benefits to the Canadian economy by strengthening a Canadian biotechnology company and creating a Canadian-based technology that will reduce the treatment cost in dental clinics and compete in the world market of local anesthetics.