Future Possibilities for Managing Dental Enamel Defects: Recent and Current Research Approaches

Abstract

The cause of an enamel defect can be genetic, systemic, local, and/or induced. The repair of these defects spans the fields from gene therapy to invasive or noninvasive conventional restorative therapies. No matter how disfiguring some of the genetic and systemic conditions are, it is unlikely that the modern techniques of genetic and tissue engineering will be used in the near future to repair or prevent these enamel defects. Clinicians will have to rely on more conventional invasive, minimally invasive, and noninvasive techniques to treat this problem. This chapter describes some new and novel techniques which are in use and/or development for the repair of enamel defects. They include: Growing enamel crystals on dental substrates, penetration of carious lesions with self-assembling molecules which encourage mineral formation, infiltrating carious lesions with resins, a paint on “enamel†using a self-etch resin, and an “enamel†crystal containing flexible laminate – a tooth “Band-Aid.â€.