Using chewing gum to detect peri-implant disease
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- Published: Thursday, 24 August 2017 07:36
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Six to fifteen percent of patients develop an inflammatory response in the years after receiving a dental implant, caused by bacteria destroying the soft tissue and the bone around the implant. In future, patients will benefit from a quick and affordable method assessing whether they carry such bacteria: using a chewing gum based diagnostic test.
The test has been developed by a pharmaceutical research team at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany. "Anyone can use this new diagnostic tool anywhere and anytime without any technical equipment," Professor Lorenz Meinel says; he is the head of the JMU Chair for Drug Formulation and Delivery. He developed the new diagnostic tool with Dr. Jennifr Ritzer and her team; the invention is currently featured in an article in the journal Nature Communications.
See: Ritzer et al: Diagnosing peri-implant disease using the tongue as a 24/7 detector, Nature Communications 8, Article number: 264 (2017) at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00340-x
Abstract:
Our ability of screening broad communities for clinically asymptomatic diseases critically drives population health. Sensory chewing gums are presented targeting the tongue as 24/7 detector allowing diagnosis by “anyone, anywhere, anytime”. The chewing gum contains peptide sensors consisting of a protease cleavable linker in between a bitter substance and a microparticle. Matrix metalloproteinases in the oral cavity, as upregulated in peri-implant disease, specifically target the protease cleavable linker while chewing the gum, thereby generating bitterness for detection by the tongue. The peptide sensors prove significant success in discriminating saliva collected from patients with peri-implant disease versus clinically asymptomatic volunteers. Superior outcome is demonstrated over commercially available protease-based tests in saliva. “Anyone, anywhere, anytime” diagnostics are within reach for oral inflammation. Expanding this platform technology to other diseases in the future features this diagnostic as a massive screening tool potentially maximizing impact on population health.
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