Two dental lab technicians at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Dentistry who lost their jobs in 2007 when the dental school planned to outsource their work to private laboratories reached a settlement in their suit in April, according to a news story in the Chapel Hill News. Their lawsuit accused UNC of not following its own Reduction in Force policies, which require the school to explore alternatives
Miami Beach, FL, dentist Jared Plitt, D.M.D., has designed a cosmetic dentistry application that can be used with the iPod Touch, iPad, and iPhone. The Cosmetic Dentistry Calculator provides a starting point for aesthetic case planning and is a useful diagnostic tool that can be used chairside during patient consultations, according to Dr. Plitt. It is intended for dentists, dental students, dental ceramists, and lab technicians. The app features a
Failure to properly clean dental instruments may have put more than 1,800 patients at a Veterans Affairs (VA) clinic at risk for hepatitis and HIV. Patients who went to the John Cochran St. Louis VA Medical Center dental clinic in Missouri between February 2009 and March 2010 may have been exposed, according to a report by KSDK TV. The VA began notifying 1,812 potentially at-risk patients via certified letters on
The DeVore family — famous for videotaping son David under the influence of dental anesthesia and posting it on the Internet — has signed a deal to make dental scrubs and is looking for other dental-related business opportunities, according to an article on the San Francisco Chronicle website, sfgate.com. “We’d love it if Crest or Colgate would sponsor the website,” dad David E. DeVore told the Business Insider. The DeVores
Using an off-the-shelf digital camera, Rice University biomedical engineers and researchers from the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have created an inexpensive device that is powerful enough to distinguish oral cancer cells from healthy cells simply by viewing the LCD monitor on the back of the camera. The results of the first tests of the camera were published online June 23 in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
The Wisconsin Dental Association (WDA) and WDA Foundation’s second Mission of Mercy exceeded its patient goal with 2,038 children and adults receiving more than $900,000 in free dental care June 25 and 26 in Sheboygan, according to the WDA. Patients ranged in age from a 1-year-old boy to a 91-year-old woman. The first four patients waited in line for almost 20 hours after setting up a tent at 10:30 a.m.
A West Virginia woman is suing Simpson Dental Associates of Charleston and a dentist for dental malpractice following an unsuccessful implant surgery, according to a news story in the West Virginia Record. According to court documents, Bonnie Ford underwent bone replacement graft surgery by Mark W. Simpson, D.D.S., on November 6, 2007, in preparation for the placement of permanent dental implants, the Record reported. Now Ford is accusing Dr. Simpson
A new peptide embedded in a soft gel or a thin, flexible film and placed next to dental decay encourages cells inside the teeth to regenerate in about a month, according to a story on Discovery News about a new animal study (ACS Nano, June 2010, Vol. 4:6, pp. 3277-3287). The gel or thin film contains a peptide known as melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH). Previous experiments have shown that MSH encourages
Merck has been ordered to pay $8 million in compensatory damages to a 72-year-old woman who claimed the company’s bisphosphonate drug Fosamax caused her to develop osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) and related dental problems. Shirley Boles’ original lawsuit ended in a mistrial last September. But on June 25, a jury in New York found in favor of Boles, calling Fosamax — routinely used to treat osteoporosis — “defectively designed”
A 6-year-old Virginia boy who died after undergoing anesthesia for a dental procedure died of an irregular heartbeat caused by removal of the breathing tube, according to the state medical examiner’s office. Jacobi Hill underwent sedation May 11 at the Virginia Commonwealth University Dental Faculty Practice in Richmond prior to having crowns put on several of his teeth. The child went into cardiac arrest shortly after the procedure was complete
IFGL Bio Ceramics has launched BioGraft HABG Active, a synthetic bone graft material based on hydroxyapatite and calcium phosphosilicate glass. The material is ideal for dental applications, especially periodontal osseous defect reconstruction, the company said. Made using a patented SolGel synthesis method, BioGraft HABG Active regenerates bones faster than hydroxyapatite ceramic and resorbs slower than pure bioactive glass products, IFGL said. Copyright © 2010 HuangshanDental.com
Combining antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (PDT) with conventional scaling and root planing (SRP) can improve clinical attachment level and probing depth in patients with chronic periodontitis, according to a study in Lasers in Medical Science (July 2010, Vol. 25:4, pp. 605-613). M.A. Atieh of the University of Otago in New Zealand systematically investigated the effectiveness of PDT as an adjuvant treatment for chronic periodontitis. He performed an electronic search for randomized