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Dentists develop painless filling procedure

Tooth decay, is one of the most painful medical problems, it is caused when mouth bacteria builds up on the teeth. Causing erosion to the tooth's enamel coating and infecting the tissue beneath it, eventually destroying large parts of the tooth and causing intense pain.

Dentist will tackle such a cavity by drilling out all the infected tissue before filling it.

Such drilling requires a local anaesthetic, meaning that the procedure is painful and uncomfortable for the patient.

But research at the Leibniz-Institute of Surface Modifications in Leipzig and dentists from the Saarland University, have presented an alternative. Where a rotting tooth can simply be blasted with beams of "cold plasma", which will kill off all the entrenched bacteria without any need for drilling or anaesthesia.

Researchers have carried out tests on dentin samples from extracted human molars which had been infected with several different kinds of bacteria. Their "cold" (approx 40°C) plasma-beam instruments apparently killed 99.99 per cent of the bacteria. The practice is contact free and the microbes can be destroyed while preserving the tooth.

Researchers say that this procedure can be available within 3 to 5 years.

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