Periodontitis and tissue regeneration

Chronic periodontitis is a destructive disease that affects the supporting structures of the teeth including periodontal ligament, cementum, and alveolar bone. If left untreated, patients may lose multiple teeth and extensive prosthetic treatment will be required. In order to re-engineer lost tooth-supporting tissues, various therapeutic modalities have been used clinically. Periodontal regeneration procedures including guided tissue regeneration have achieved substantial effects. However, there are several issues to be solved. They are highly technique-sensitive, applicable to limited cases which are susceptible to treatment, and supposed to have relatively low predictability. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new approaches to improve the predictability and effectiveness of regenerative therapies for periodontal tissues. Recently, the concept of tissue engineering has been introduced to restore lost tissues more effectively where the biological process of healing is mimicked. To achieve this, integration of three key elements is required: progenitor/stem cells, growth factors and the extracellular matrix scaffold. Although it has been shown that implantation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells into periodontal osseous defects induced regeneration of cementum, periodontal ligament and alveolar bone in dogs, further extensive preclinical studies are required. On the other hand, application of growth factors, particularly basic fibroblast growth factor in the treatment of human periodontitis, is promising and is now in clinical trial. Furthermore, the rate of release of growth factor from the scaffold also can profoundly affect the results of tissue engineering strategies and the development of new materials is expected. In addition, as tissue regenerative potential is negatively regulated by aging, the effects of aging have to be clarified to gain complete regeneration.