Breakthrough treatment for crippling jaw disease created
A first-ever tissue implant to safely treat a common jaw defect, known as temporomandibular joint dysfunction, has been successfully tested by UCI-led researchers in a large animal model, according to new findings.
A first-ever tissue implant to safely treat a common jaw defect, known as temporomandibular joint dysfunction, has been successfully tested by UCI-led researchers in a large animal model, according to new findings.
"We were able to show that we could achieve exceptional healing of the TMJ area after eight weeks of treatment," said UCI distinguished biomedical engineering professor Kyriacos Athanasiou, senior author on the study published in Science Translational Medicine. He has spent nearly two decades researching the condition and potential treatments, since learning the widespread extent of the problem.
About 25 percent of adults worldwide—90 percent of them premenopausal women—suffer from difficulty eating and talking, chronic mouth pain, arthritis and other issues due to defects in the cartilage disc that hinges together two key jawbones.
Now, using animal models, the scientists at UCI, UC Davis and University of Texas Houston School of Dentistry have successfully removed a tiny bit of existing rib tissue, isolated its cartilage cells, and used them to tissue-engineer jaw disc cartilage using a "self-assembling" process they developed. They then surgically inserted the new cartilage into the faulty hinge point of the jaw joint. The approach was allogeneic, meaning that they took rib cells from one individual and implanted the new cartilage into another. Eight weeks later, the defects were completely gone.
"This is a terrible condition, I have friends and colleagues who have suffered from it, so it"s extremely satisfying to think we could provide relief," said co-author Jerry Hu, UCI principal design engineer, who developed a critical stage of the work, which involved reining in the sometimes "poorly behaved" rib cells into smoothly functioning jaw disc cartilage.
Researchers and physicians have struggled for decades to effectively treat TMJ afflictions. One infamous technique involved putting Teflon into the jaw area, which disintegrated into bits in the brain and elsewhere. "It was a disaster," said Athanasiou. After hearing about that and a subsequent dearth of research, he plunged in, first at UT, then at Rice, UC Davis and now at UCI.
The next steps will be to ensure long-term effectiveness and safety of the implant in the animals, and then conduct clinical trials.
Reference:http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/10/446/eaaq1802
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