THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 8, 1996 TAG: 9601050141
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
A narrowly focused stream of abrasive powder removes tooth decay without anesthesia.
You sink back in the chair. Sweat beads on your brow. The dentist's rubber-gloved hand approaches, bearing the whining, teeth-pulverizing drill. .
Take heart if you loathe the thought of rotating metal in your mouth. A new generation of ``particle beam'' dental drills could take the fear - and pain - out of your semi-annual checkups.
``My patients love it,'' says dentist Dr. James Baker, whose Chesapeake practice is one of a handful in Hampton Roads to offer the device. ``There's no sound or smell of the drill.'' And, for 95 percent of Baker's patients, no anesthesia either.
The drill, powered by compressed air just like conventional drills, uses ultra-fine abrasive powder to cleanse teeth to pinpoint cavities and other trouble spots. A narrowly focused stream of miniscule aluminum oxide particles, each no more than a tenth the diameter of a single human hair, essentially sandblasts away decay in preparation for repair.
Because the particles are tiny and the pressurized flow so focused, only small portions of the tooth need be abraded. There's no vibration, no cooling water stream (conventional drills get hot) and no drill-caused microscopic tooth fractures. All of those things have the net effect of irritating sensitive nerves in teeth and gums.
Air-abrasive drills, as they're also called, were invented in the 1940s. But as Baker explains, the earlier models weren't able to carve deep or fast enough to accommodate bulky metallic fillings.
These successors have been made possible by another technological advance: the relative perfection of plastic-like composite fillings, which require a far smaller surface area than traditional sealants for proper attachment.
Baker says the machine handles differently from traditional equipment and requires several weeks of practice to handle effectively. Although he's shelled out about $9,500 for his particular machine, Baker expects fees to remain pretty much the same. MEMO: ``Tech Track'' appears every Monday in the Daily Break. Readers with
ideas for future columns are invited to contact staff science and
technology writer James Schultz at (804) 446-2599, or via e-mail at
schultz infi.net
ILLUSTRATION: Color illustration by John Earle
by CNB