A Roslyn Heights company was instrumental in a new device that could change the way dental professionals treat children.
The new device known as ECD helps prevent tooth decay in children and was funded by Ortek Therapeutics, a Roslyn Heights company, and developed by doctors at Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine.
“Dental professionals will soon have a new and valuable tool that will help their patients avoid cavities,” said Mitchell Goldberg, president of Ortek Therapeutics.
He said the device, which got a green light from the U.S. Patent office last Wednesday, will solve a lot of oral issues for people and dentists.
“We believe the ECD is a major breakthrough in oral care,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg said most of the tooth decay in children occur in what he calls the back teeth — the molars and premolars.
“When you eat, food can stick in those back teeth and those are what causes decay,” Goldberg said.
He said the food stuck in the teeth starts to build up plaque when not cleaned properly, which “starts to eat away at the enamel” in what is called de-enamelization.
“When you start losing minerals in the early stages, dental professionals often aren’t able to see it,” Goldberg said.
He said by the time dentists start feeling for soft spots in the teeth, there is already a lot of mineral loss in the teeth.
When the teeth start losing minerals, Goldberg said, percolation starts in the tooth just below the enamel.
“The more mineral you lose, the more the liquid starts to percolate up if there is any type of breach in the teeth,” Goldberg said.
He said dentists can’t catch the process because it is so microscopic that they would need some type of magnification lens.
That is where ECD comes in.
The ECD device is designed to detect pre-cavity lesions in molars and premolars, the back teeth with the highest rates of decay.
He said the biting surfaces of these teeth have deep grooves that often retain acid-producing bacteria.
Over time, acid attacks can lead to tooth mineral loss, which initiates the development of cavities.
He said the ECD device features a hand piece with a probe tip and can precisely measure the amount of dentinal fluid seepage.
The more fluid it detects, the greater the extent of the pre-cavity lesion.
The data then enables the dental practitioner to determine the severity of the lesions and design an appropriate treatment plan that could include minimally invasive care.
“We’re catching this at an earlier stage,” Goldberg said.
He said human and laboratory clinical studies have demonstrated that the device can detect the earliest stages of tooth de-mineralization or pre-cavity lessons with 100 percent accuracy.
The United States patent for the “Device for the Detection of Non-Cavitated Early Dental Caries Lesions” was issued to the Research Foundation for the State University of New York.
Ortek Therapeutics, located at 4 Expressway Plaza, funded the research and will market and license the technology in the United States. pending FDA marketing clearance.
Goldberg said the patents covering the device has also been issued in Australia, China and Mexico with other patents pending worldwide.
