Smile... because painful dental implants could soon be a thing of the past.
Griffith University's Menzies Health Institute Queensland is trialling the use of 3D bioprinting to replace missing teeth and bone.
Led by periodontist Saso Ivanovski, the team will use this technology to create new tissue-engineered bone and gum able to be implanted into a patient's jawbone.
Professor Ivanovski said the approach scans the affected jaw before designing the replacement part using computer-assisted design.
"A specialised bioprinter, which is set at the correct physiological temperature, is then able to successfully fabricate the gum structures that have been lost to disease - bone, ligament and tooth cementum - in one single process," he said.
These components can be manufactured to exactly fit the missing bone and gum for individual patients.
People with missing teeth who have lost a lot of jawbone normally need dental implants, but in many cases there is not enough bone to do this.
Professor Ivanovski said in these instances bone grafts are usually taken from another part of the body, including the jaw, hip and skull.
These traditional procedures are often associated with significant pain, nerve damage and post-operative swelling.
"By using this sophisticated tissue engineering approach, we can instigate a much less invasive method of bone replacement," Professor Ivanovski said.
The research is currently in pre-clinical trials and Professor Ivanovski hopes to trial the new approach in humans within the next one to two years.
