MELVILLE, N.Y., April 7, 2014 — Henry Schein, Inc., the world’s largest provider of healthcare products and services to office-based dental, animal health, and medical practitioners, is celebrating National Public Health Week (NPHW) in partnership with the School of Health Sciences and Human Services at Hofstra University. This week-long public health observance, which runs from April 6-12 at Hofstra, will address the challenges facing public health professionals in improving the health of all people and communities.

Henry Schein will participate in various NPHW activities, including the Minority Health Conference, which will bring together health professionals and community stakeholders to promote health care equity and provide free-of-charge oral health screenings to nearly 100 local high school students. Henry Schein Cares, the Company’s global corporate social responsibility program, will donate equipment and supplies for the oral health screenings, as well as take-home oral health kits. The Company will also participate in an oral public health panel, entitled “Dental Public Health: Politics, Policy and Practice,” which will explore the relationship between oral health and overall health.  Gerard Meuchner, Vice President and Chief Global Communications Officer of Henry Schein, will moderate the panel.

“Henry Schein is proud to partner with Hofstra to raise awareness about the connection of oral health to overall health as part of National Public Health Week,” said Mr. Meuchner. “We are pleased to contribute to the health screenings and to do our part in spreading the word about the need to increase access to oral care within the context of the national mission to address public health problems.”

Since 1995, NPHW, organized by the American Public Health Association (APHA), has been held on the first full week of April. This year’s theme, “Public Health: Start Here,” underscores the importance of health professionals in helping individuals and communities adjust to the ever-changing world of public health, stressing the need for collaboration among diverse constituencies.

“National Public Health Week is a time to foster understanding, engagement and support for key public health issues,” said Ronald L. Bloom, PhD, Acting Dean of the School of Health Sciences and Human Services at Hofstra University. “It is crucial that we use this week to spread the word about how community-based health care campaigns, such as those promoted at Hofstra, can work to resolve the disparities and access to care issues that are at the heart of public health challenges in America.”

This is the second year the School of Health Sciences and Human Services at Hofstra University observed NPHW. In addition to panel discussions and the Minority Health Conference, the series will feature film screenings, student-run exhibits, and a 5K run. For more information about NPHW events at Hofstra, visit Hofstra.edu/nphw2014.

Anesthesia Progress– Anesthesia is commonly used by dentists when they want to ensure young patients remain calm during an operation and feel as little pain as possible afterward. Dentist anesthesiologists may use either general or local anesthesia, but some choose to use both with children, despite conflicting research on the combined approach.

The current issue of the journal Anesthesia Progress reports on a survey given to members of the American Society of Dentist Anesthesiologists (ASDA). It asked about anesthesia choices for young patients and reasons for supplementing general anesthesia with local anesthesia.

Prior studies have found that local anesthesia can benefit children undergoing dental procedures. Advantages include less distress in recovering from anesthesia and less pain after extractions. However, other reports have found no difference in postoperative pain. Some dentists skip local anesthesia in most cases because they fear the additional anesthetic will cause children to bite their lip or cheek after surgery.

The current survey found a range of practices and rationales for anesthesia decisions. The e-mail-based survey was sent to 183 members of the ASDA, and responses were received from about 42% of the members.

The survey revealed that 90% of responding dentist anesthesiologists prefer the combined approach when treating some or most of their young patients. These respondents said the pairing makes it easier to stabilize the children’s vital signs while decreasing the depth of general anesthesia. They also reported that the children experience less pain and recover more quickly with dual anesthetics. Half of them decide on the approach based on the patient, and 40% supplement general with local anesthesia in all but a few cases.

The survey also showed strong links between the type of practice, type of procedure, and whether there are other dentists involved. Most responding ASDA members administer only the anesthesia for children in dental offices and let the operating dentist decide whether to use local anesthesia. About 27% of respondents said they make the decision because they both administer the anesthesia and perform the operation. Local anesthesia is most often added when dentists were preparing to extract permanent or primary teeth.

Despite the preference for administering both types of anesthesia, the survey authors found that little scientific evidence is available to ASDA members in making their decision. The authors noted that no prospective double-blind studies conclusively argue for or against the combined usage.

Full text of the article “Use of local anesthesia during dental rehabilitation with general anesthesia: A survey of dentist anesthesiologists,” Anesthesia Progress, Vol. 61, No. 1, 2014, is now available here.

New York University College of Dentistry (NYUCD) has announced that the second issue of NYUCD’s online-only, open-access magazine, the Journal of the Academy of Distinguished Educators (JADE), is online now at: https://www.nyu.edu/dental/ade/jadeindex.html.

JADE is the publications component of the NYU Academy of Distinguished Educators, whose mission is to enhance overall teaching at the NYUCD and to stimulate excitement among teachers around their intellectual content. Central to the vision of the Academy is the idea that teaching and learning are fundamental to the core mission of the College and that faculty members should be valued for their contributions in this area. JADE invites experts in higher education to face off on the thorny issues confronting higher education, at the same time as it endeavors to foster interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration.

Appropriately, the new issue of JADE features a discussion of Interprofessional Education and Practice (IPE), a pedagogical approach to preparing health professions students to provide patient care in a collaborative, team environment.

The issue has as its theme "Interprofessional Education and Practice: A Concept Whose Time Has Come." It features a guest editorial by Dr. Stefanie Russell, associate professor of periodontology and implant dentistry and of epidemiology and health promotion; a centerpiece article by Dr. Kathleen Klink, immediate past director of the Division of Medicine and Dentistry at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and Dr. Renée Joskow, Senior Dental Advisor and Chief, Oral Health Branch (HRSA); and commentaries by Dr. Judith Haber, associate dean for graduate programs and The Ursula Springer Leadership Professor in Nursing at the NYU College of Nursing, and Dr. Marko Vujicic, managing vice president of the ADA’s Health Policy Resources Center.

The East Carolina University School of Dental Medicine opened the third Community Service Learning Center in Lillington, NC, with a ribbon cutting ceremony held on March 24.

The Lillington site, a 7,700-square-foot facility, is the third of eight to 10 service learning centers planned for operation in underserved areas across the state. The facilities combine clinical education, patient care and a community outreach aspect.

The facility will be staffed with a dentist as the director, stationed at each 16-chair center along with two general dentistry residents. Senior year, students will spend eight weeks at three different sites. During the period, they will learn about the local communities and help treat patients.

“The goal is to have students spending time in the communities where we want them to practice, recruit people from the communities and keep tuition as low as possible. It is part of the dental school model and our mission, and the centers are part of that model,” said Margaret Wilson, associate dean for student affairs.

The first center is located in Ahoskie and the second center is located in Elizabeth City. Other planned sites include Lumberton, Sylva, Lillington, Spruce Pines and Davidson County.

“We had to establish an education program in order to prepare students for rural healthcare because in rural areas people will have general health care problems, as well as dental, and have greater financial need. This program will prepare them for these challenges,” said Wilson.

The dental school’s curriculum has been modified to an accelerated pace in order to have students ready to go to the community centers, according to Wilson. The curriculum will also focus on clinical and system-based medicine in order to prepare students for working in rural healthcare.

“The university paid for the building and for staffing, while the land is donated by the community,” said Wilson. “People are excited for the center, and it is a joint ownership and partnership with the community.”

A major component of the center is community service by the students working there. These university students will work with children at local schools. School-provided housing will be available, within the community, for the students of the School of Dental Medicine.

“For students to mentor and be a role models in local communities, where not everyone is a college graduate, goes back to educating and making leaders in local communities and is an important aspect of our mission and goal,” said Wilson.

Coincidentally, all dental students, a class size of 52, are North Carolina residents. There are an estimated 400 people applying to the school each year, in addition to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, home of the only other dental school in the state.

“The reason we as a dental school were established was for dentist for North Carolina, we have an obligation to educate North Carolinians,” said Wilson. “The people of North Carolina made the decision through their legislators to fund and support the dental school.”

North Carolina ranks 47th out of the 50 states in the number of dentists per capita, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC Chapel Hill. The state averages three dentists for every 10,000 people residing in rural areas, while it averages nearly five dentists for every 10,000 people residing in urban areas.

Nationally, the ratio is six dentists for every 10,000 people. Eighty out of 100 counties are considered rural by the Rural Center of North Carolina..

“The placing of the dental school at ECU is a perfect fit with ECU’s commitment to service, leadership and the transformation of communities,’ said Wilson. “We have a similar model, like Brody, where our aim is to provide general dentist for the communities of Eastern NC as well as across the state. “

Future plans for the dental school include the first graduating class of 2015 and establishing a pediatric dentistry residency, the only specialty training to be provided by the school.

Source: The East Carolinian

CHICAGO, April 4, 2014 — Eugenio Beltran, DMD, MPH, MS, DrPH, DABDPH, has accepted the position of the Senior Director, Center for Scientific Strategies & Information. Dr. Beltran will oversee activities of the Council on Scientific Affairs; identify emerging issues, assess and evaluate the scientific basis, clinical relevance and member value for issues; and guide the programs of the ADA's Science Institute, including the Center for Evidence-Based Dentistry, Center for Product Evaluation, Professional Product Review under the Center for Scientific Information.

Dr. Beltran comes to the ADA from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he served as the Senior Scientist and Advisor to the Director Division of Oral Health. Dr. Beltran led the Division of Oral Health Surveillance, Research and Investigations team in conducting national and state surveillance of oral diseases and investigations in dental caries, fluorides and fluorosis. Most recently he was responsible for collating the scientific evidence for CDC’s evaluation of recommendations for fluoride in drinking water for the US. He joined the CDC in 1991 as an epidemiologist to support state efforts in collecting surveillance data conducting research on alternative methods for data collection. This led to the development of the Basic Screening Survey, a surveillance tool which is used at state and national level. Prior to the CDC, Dr. Beltran spent several years conducting research at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and School of Public Health and Institute for Social Research.

Dr. Beltran received his Bachelor of Science Degree and his Cirujano Dentista (DMD) at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Peru. He also received his Master of Public Health, Master of Science and Doctor of Public Health from the University of Michigan. He presently serves as the President on the Board at the American Association of Public Health Dentistry (2013-2014). He is married to Dr. Rachel J. Gorwitz, MPH, MD., a Pediatrician and Preventive Medicine Fellow at CDC.

SAN DIEGO, April 4, 2014 – An examination of the genetic landscape of head and neck cancers indicates that while metastatic and primary tumor cells share similar mutations, recurrent disease is associated with gene alterations that could be exquisitely sensitive to an existing cancer drug. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) and Yale University School of Medicine shared their findings during a mini-symposium Sunday at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2014.

About 50% of patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell cancers already have disease that has spread, or metastasized, to the lymph nodes, explained Jennifer Grandis, MD, distinguished professor and vice chair of research, Department of Otolaryngology, Pitt School of Medicine, and director of the Head and Neck Program at UPCI, partner with UPMC Cancer Center. About 20% to 30% of patients thought to be cured of the disease go on to develop recurrent cancer, which typically doesn’t respond to standard treatments.

“We decided to compare the genetic signatures of tumor cells from primary tumors with those from disease that had spread and cancers that were thought cured but then came back in the hopes of getting some clues about how best to guide therapy in these different settings,” Dr. Grandis said. “We found that recurrent cancers might have an Achilles’ heel we can exploit to kill them.”

The team conducted the first whole-exome genetic sequencing study on what Dr. Grandis called its “treasure trove” of frozen patient samples and found similar mutations both in primary tumors and in the lymph nodes to which their cancers had already spread. But there were different mutations in tumors that had recurred after a period of remission that were not found in their original cancers.

“The recurrent tumors carried mutations in a gene area that encodes for DDR2 cell receptors,” Dr. Grandis said. “Other studies have shown that DDR2 mutations can confer sensitivity to the cancer drug dasatinib, which could mean that drug has promise in the treatment of recurrent head and neck cancers.”

The researchers suggest that further investigation of dasatinib treatment is warranted.

Andalusian researchers, led by the University of Granada, have discovered a curious characteristic of the members of the human lineage, classed as the genus Homo: they are the only primates where, throughout their 2.5-million year history, the size of their teeth has decreased alongside the increase in their brain size.

The key to this phenomenon, which scientists call “evolutionary paradox”, could be in how Homo’s diet has evolved. Digestion starts first in the mouth and, so, teeth are essential in breaking food down into smaller pieces. Therefore, the normal scenario would be that, if the brain grows in size, and, hence, the body’s metabolic needs, so should teeth.

However, in the case of Homo, this has not been the case, according to scientists in an article recently published in the journal BioMed Research International. The main author of the study, researcher Juan Manuel Jimenez Arenas, from the University of Granada’s Department of Pre-History and Archaeology, points out that “This means that significant changes must have occurred in order to maintain this trend”.

A change in diet, incorporating a higher amount of animal food, must have been one of the keys to this phenomenon. The quality leap in Homo’s diet, through a greater intake in animal proteins, fats and certain olio-elements, is essential for a correct working and maintenance of the brain. On a similar note, a larger brain allows greater social and cultural development, which, at that time, led to the achievement of important technological innovations.

In order to validate this theory, the researchers evaluated the relationship between the size of post-canine teeth and the volume of the endocranium in a wide set of primates, among which were found the main representatives of Homo fossils. “Before we started the study, it was well known that, throughout the evolution of humans, tooth-size diminished and brain-size increased. We have established that they are two opposing evolutionary trends that have been linked for 2.5 million years, when our first ancestors within the Homo genus first appeared on the evolutionary stage”.

The study’s authors also relate these changes to the inactivation of gene MYH16, linked to temporalis musculature, which fell in size approximately 2.4 million years ago. This would do away with an important barrier for encephalization (a hypertrophied temporalis musculature prevents the development of the cranial dome). Likewise, they analyzed their relationship with the inactivation of gene SRGAP2, which helps towards the evolution of the neo-cortex, playing a principal role in human brain development.

This study has been carried out thanks to the collaboration of Juan Manuel Jiménez Arenas, along with three renowned lecturers and researchers from the University of Malaga: Paul Palmqvist and Juan Antonio Pérez Claros, from the Dept. of Ecology and Geology, and Juan Carlos Aledo, from the Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Source: University of Granada

Inside Dental Assisting, a sister publication of Compendium, is accepting nominations for the 2014 Dental Assistant of the Year. Please join IDA in celebrating the contributions made by dental assistants everyday and everywhere.

To nominate a candidate, visit DentalAssistantOfTheYear.com. The contest closes Sept. 8. But don’t wait – strike while the iron is hot!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released results of a National Health Interview Survey that asked the question, "Have you lost all of your upper and lower natural (permanent) teeth?" The percentage of adults aged ≥ 65 years who have lost all their natural teeth is broken down by type of locality and region.

During 2010-2012, 30% of adults aged ≥ 65 years living in nonmetropolitan areas had no natural teeth, compared with 21% of those living in metropolitan areas. The percentage of adults aged ≥ 65 years with no natural teeth was higher in nonmetropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas in all regions of the United States. In both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, the West had the lowest percentage of adults with no natural teeth.

To see the CDC QuickStats, click here.

A research group at Uppsala University, Sweden has developed a new responsive coating for implants used in surgery to improve their integration into bone and to prevent rejection. Neutron scattering experiments at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble, France have shown how a protein that promotes bone growth binds to this surface and can be released in a controlled way.

Orthopaedic and dental implants must last for many years. Success for these surgical components depends on integration into adjacent bone tissue. Gels made by modifying hyaluronan, a large biological molecule, can be used to coat implants. A new paper in Advanced Engineering Materials shows that the coated titanium surfaces can bind protein molecules which promote bone formation. These can be released slowly once the surface comes in contact with a solution of calcium ions. This process would stimulate the growth of bone on the implant.

The gel layers, a few millionths of a millimetre thick, were characterised using neutron reflection at the ILL, a technique that provides a detailed picture of what happens at a surface. In their new paper the research team showed that the protein, BMP-2, that encourages bone growth was bound to the gel. They also demonstrated that the layer of protein was stable in water but could be released slowly by adding solutions containing calcium, a process that was observed in real time using neutron reflection to track the amount of protein at the surface.

The research group has now launched trials of similar materials for metal implants in rabbits. These ongoing studies are made in collaboration with the Swedish Agricultural University in Uppsala and they provide a step towards transfer of the results to clinical applications.

'Interdisciplinary research and partnerships allow advanced analytical tools to be applied to important but difficult medical and scientific challenges. This exciting work comes from shared goals of chemists and physicists as well as the Centre for Neutron Scattering at Uppsala University and the laboratories in Grenoble', says Professor Adrian Rennie.

'We envisage that the materials will be used in medicine to modulate the healing process in bone', says Associate Professor Dmitri Ossipov. He continues, 'Neutrons are an ideal tool to understand the interactions of metal surfaces, polysaccharide biopolymers, and proteins thanks to a contrast matching technique that highlights only the protein components at the interface.'

'Neutron scattering techniques are increasingly relevant to optimise bio-materials and to study systems that relate to health. The importance of combining conventional laboratory studies with those at a large scale facility to give a complete picture of a process was proven once more. This work arose from a studentship funded by the Institut Laue-Langevin which makes us proud of our PhD programme.' says Dr Giovanna Fragneto from the Institut Laue-Langevin.

Source: EurekaAlert!