Dental Implants Application Using Tissue Engineering Technology

Mastication is important processes for better quality of life. After teeth extraction or trauma, tumor resection, skeletal malformations, infection and periodontal disease, alveolar bone resorption is occured and bone graft is often needed. A present gold standard of the bone graft is autologous bone graft, but it has drawbacks such as heavy burden on the patient. Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) could be used to reduce morbidity and have been lately attracted considerable attention to restore tissue and function lost or damaged. In addition, the leading part for clinical application is somatic stem cells. Especially mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are easily isolated and extracted from various tissues including bone marrow, adipose, muscle, dermis, neural tissue, deciduous teeth, and dental pulp. It has the ability of self-renewal, trans-differentiation potential, plasticity, and immunosuppressive effects. It was also applied in oral and maxillofacial surgery fields. We developed the study of bone tissue engineering, which was named as “injectable tissue engineered bone (TEB)”, with MSCs as the stem cells and platelet rich plasma (PRP) as scaffolds and growth factors, and clinical trials were conducted with it. The results were good and reliable. In this time, it would introduce about application in bone regeneration for dental implants using tissue engineering technology. In the future, regenerative medicine with stem cells would be applied for not only dental field but also general disease as a promising treatment.