LONDON (TIP): British scientists have discovered a technique which can make a decayed tooth repair itself. The technique, developed at King’s College, London, effectively reverses decay by using electrical currents to boost the tooth’s natural repair process. This path-breaking treatment could be available in three years, according to the British researchers who created it.

The two-step method developed first prepares the damaged part of the enamel outer layer of the tooth and then uses a tiny electric current to ‘push’ minerals into the tooth to repair the damaged site. The defect is remineralised in a painless process that requires no drills, no injections and no filling materials. Electric currents are already used by dentists to check the pulp or nerve of a tooth; the new device uses a far smaller current than that currently used on patients and which cannot be felt by the patient.

The technique is known as Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation. The researchers said, “Dentists could soon be giving your teeth a mild ‘time warp’ to encourage them to self-repair . It aims to take the pain out of tooth decay treatment by electrically reversing the process to help teeth ‘remineralise’ .” Nigel Pitts from the Dental Institute at King’s College London said, “The way we treat teeth today is not ideal – when we repair a tooth by putting in a filling, that tooth enters a cycle of drilling and refilling as, ultimately, each “repair” fails.