The Morning Drill: June 9, 2011

A collection of dentistry and health related links/comments to start your day.

Sheriff's Office: Woman practiced dentistry without license

A 38-year-old Horizon City woman has been arrested for allegedly practicing dentistry in her home without a license.

El Paso County Sheriff's deputies said they arrested Edith Castañeda on Tuesday on suspicion of violating the state dentistry act occupations code.

Deputies said that on June 2, they received information from the Horizon City Police Department that Castañeda was allegedly performing dental procedures such as tooth extractions, drilling and filling teeth, injecting patients with anesthesia and dispensing medications without a proper license.

She was booked into the El Paso County Jail on a $10,000 bond.

Dental stem cells could be lifesavers in the long run

People often dread going to the dentist, many of them putting it off for as long as possible.

But getting to the dentist early in life could benefit you in the long run, and for reasons that have little to do with your teeth.

Research is underway to determine the possibility of using dental stem cells as treatment for various cancers and injuries, much like the use of stem cells from umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid and bone marrow.

There are currently no Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments using dental stem cells, but that hasn't stopped some dentists from offering their patients the opportunity to harvest them through companies such as StemSave and Store-A-Tooth.

"When I heard how easy it is to harvest the stem cells from teeth and the potential uses for them, it seemed like something that was a great service we could provide for our patients for a number of reasons," said Dr. Jay Reznick, who uses StemSave at his Tarzana practice, Southern California Center for Oral and Facial Surgery.

Smoking Increases Women's Risk for Peripheral Artery Disease

Among initially healthy women, smoking for even a short time is a potent risk factor for symptomatic peripheral artery disease (PAD), according to the results of a prospective cohort study reported in the June 7 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

"This study showed that—as has been previously shown for heart attacks and for lung cancer—that smoking is actually very harmful for the development of PAD," said senior author Aruna D. Pradhan, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, in a news release. "This is significant because PAD is a disease that not only causes a lot of pain and discomfort with usual, daily activities but it also increases the risk of heart attack."

Cell Phones of Hospital Patients Carry Pathogenic Bacteria

Mobile phones (MPs) of hospital patients and their visitors carry a higher risk for nosocomial pathogen colonization than do the MPs of healthcare workers (HCWs), according to the results of a cross-sectional study published in the June issue of the American Journal of Infection Control.

"In contrast to [the] benefits of these devices, some investigators have reported that MPs of medical personnel may be a potential source of bacterial pathogens in the hospital setting," write Mehmet Sait Tekerekoglu, MD, from the Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine, Inonu University in Malatya, Turkey, and colleagues. "However, there are little data about the infection threat offered by the MPs of the persons except HCWs. The present study was conducted to determine whether MPs of patients, patients' companions, and visitors carry any pathogenic bacteria likely to cause infection in hospital wards."

Enjoy your morning drill!