The experience of the rigid lockdown in the dental emergency room and urgency care during COVID-19 pandemic: a transnational multicenter observational study.

OBJECTIVE: The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on our lives all over the world. Changes have occurred in daily life as well as in all medical services. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the emergency accesses in four universities' emergency services during the lockdown period from March to June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was carried out on 44,787 patients to evaluate the emergency services of university centers. The medical data of Medical Emergency Service Data (MESD) were assessed by five independent operators considering the epidemiological findings for statistics methods. RESULTS: A lower level of emergency access was reported in March-July compared to the pre-COVID period. The epidemiological data confirmed that female pathologies were more frequent compared to male patients. A fluctuation for almost all urgent healthcare centers was detected, showing one/two peaks per year during the years 2017-2019. The COVID-19 pandemic period did not influence the variety of pathology detected. CONCLUSIONS: After the lockdown period, the emergency services slowly increased in cases. The pre-COVID period showed an overlapping of the most frequent pathologies compared to the post-COVID period: periodontitis (Bari and Tirana), dental fractures (Bari and Bucharest), odontogenic abscess (Bari, Cluj and Tirana).

The effectiveness of autologous demineralized tooth graft for the bone ridge preservation: a systematic review of the literature.

Resorption of alveolar ridge after tooth extraction often compromises dental implant placement and esthetic. Alveolar ridge preservation is a common procedure performed in order to preserve the pontic site for a prosthetically ideal position. This procedure has already become an indisputable need. Tooth matrix as bone substituted material poses osteoconduction and osteoinduction properties and as autologous graft, this material is free of antigenic reaction. This biomaterial allows the threedimensional reconstruction of the bone, is easy to prepare and has a low cost. The aim of this review is to summarize and put in evidence the properties of tooth as bone substitute and its use in alveolar ridge preservation. Keyword: autologous tooth, autologous graft, bone regeneration, bone substitute, alveolar ridge preservation, alveolar ridge augmentation, socket preservation.

Steroids and growth factors in oral squamous cell carcinoma: useful source of dental-derived stem cells to develop a steroidogenic model in new clinical strategies.

OBJECTIVE: Head and neck region is involved in a high percentage of malignant lesions, and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is undoubtedly the most frequently found, accounting for over 90% of malignant tumors. Hormone receptor overexpression, like Estrogen Receptor (ER), Progesterone Receptor (PR) and Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR), and signaling have been related to the pathogenesis of OSCC. For metastasis of OSCC, Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs) undergo epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) under the influence of growth factors, cytokines, and regulation of cadherins from the tumor's microenvironment. In this context, the stem cells may become a potential therapeutic target for OSCC through modulation of cytokines and RAS pathway, which is involved in intracell signal transduction. The objective of this study was to suggest an experimental steroidogenic model for OSCC in translational research. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Dental-derived Stem Cells (D-dSCs) have been obtained from apical papilla tissue that surrounds the developing tooth of healthy donors and cultured in vitro. The cells have been exposed to different concentrations of Estradiol (E2 - 10 nM and 40 nM) in order to verify their response. The number of cells and cell viability has been evaluated up to 96 hours of treatment. RESULTS: The results showed that cell growth was increased under estradiol treatments compared with cells maintained without estradiol. Moreover, no significant difference in cell death levels was detected among treatments. CONCLUSIONS: This work underlines as D-dSCs could represent a useful steroidogenic model for the development of the target and gene therapies in OSCC.