A review of the effect of music on dental anxiety in children.

AIM: To review the current literature on the effectiveness of using music as an intervention to reduce dental anxiety in children. METHODS: At the University of Leeds, the School of Music and the School of Dentistry collaborated to conduct an online search strategy. The Cochrane Library and Medline databases were used to find the current available evidence. RESULTS: Systematic reviews and clinical trial studies as well as cohort studies containing pertinent information on the effect of music on anxiety in the clinical setting were reviewed. The literature showed that music can have a biological and psychological impact on emotion and consequently has been used effectively as an aid to moderate anxiety in the clinical setting. With regard to paediatric dentistry, majority of studies were found to support the use of music in reducing dental anxiety in children, however several additional studies showed that music did not significantly reduce the children's dental anxiety. The studies employed a number of methods to measure dental anxiety including the Venham's Picture Test, the Venham's clinical anxiety rating scale and pulse oximetry. They also used a range of music types; some studies allowed for patient self-selection of music whereas others dictated the music the children listened to. CONCLUSIONS: There is an increasing body of evidence to support the use of music to moderate anxiety within the clinical setting in both medicine and dentistry. However, the current evidence for the effectiveness of using music to reduce dental anxiety in children is inconclusive and of limited quality.

Analysis of p63 and cytokeratin expression in a cultivated limbal autograft used in the treatment of limbal stem cell deficiency.

AIM: To investigate the expression of p63 and cytokeratins throughout the course of producing a cultivated autograft of limbal epithelial cells. METHODS: A 75 year old male with a severe alkali burn to his right eye received two cultivated autografts of limbal epithelial cells on amniotic membrane followed by a corneal allograft. Immunostaining for p63 and cytokeratins was performed during ex vivo expansion with 3T3 fibroblasts, following subcultivation on amniotic membrane, and on the excised corneal button. RESULTS: Cultures grown in the presence of 3T3 fibroblasts or on amniotic membrane displayed positive staining for keratins 14 and 19, and p63, but poor staining for keratin 3 (K3). The excised corneal button possessed a stratified epithelium of K3 positive cells residing on amniotic membrane. CONCLUSIONS: Our results document for the first time the co-expression of cytokeratins 14 and 19 with p63 in a cultivated limbal graft. These data support the conclusion that cultivated grafts of limbal epithelium contain predominantly undifferentiated cells with the potential to regenerate a normal corneal epithelium.