Novel technologies for the prevention and treatment of dental caries: a patent survey.
BACKGROUND
Dental caries is one of the most common preventable childhood diseases; people are susceptible to this ailment throughout their lifetime. In the US, 90% of late adolescents and young adults have dental caries, while 94% of all dentate adults had evidence of treated or untreated coronal caries. Dental caries is often not self-limiting and without proper care can progress until the tooth is destroyed.


METHODS
In this paper, the etiology of dental caries is briefly introduced. It is followed by a thorough review of patents and literatures on the recent development of various novel technologies for the prevention and treatment of dental caries.


RESULTS
Recent advances in anti-plaque agents, including chemoprophylactic agents, antimicrobial peptides, vaccines, probiotics/replacement therapy and sugar substitutes, and remineralization agents including fluorides and casein phosphopeptides are analyzed. TAKE HOME MASSAGE: Both the discovery of new anti-caries agents and the development of dentotropic delivery systems will be the future focus of this research field.
University of Nebraska Medical Center, College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, COP 3026, Omaha, NE 68198-6025, USA.
Fu
F
Chen
Dong
D
Wang
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D003731:Dental Caries / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000628:therapy; D003773:Dental Plaque / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D015195:Drug Design; D006801:Humans; D010330:Patents as Topic; D017001:Tooth Demineralization / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000209:etiology; D014089:Tooth Remineralization / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult