Chewing gum to provide quick dental implant inflammation test

16 Aug 2017 --- Patients who develop an inflammatory response in the years after receiving a dental implant, a group that makes up 6 to 15 percent of dental implant patients, will be able to benefit from a chewing gum-based diagnostic test in the future. The test, designed by a pharmaceutical research team at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany, will detect if bacteria are destroying the soft tissue and the bone around the implant in the worst-case scenario.

“Anyone can use this new diagnostic tool anywhere and anytime without any technical equipment,” University of Würzburg Chair of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmacy Dr. Tessa C. Lühmann tells NutritionInsight. “In the future patients will benefit from a quick and affordable method assessing whether they carry [these bacteria].”

“The method is rapid and a result is typically achieved in just five minutes,” Lühmann continues. “Patients can then visit their dentist who confirms the diagnosis and treats the disease. This type of early and easy detection aims at preventing serious complications such as bone loss.”

Professor Lorenz Meinel, the Head of the JMU Chair for Drug Formulation and Delivery, developed the new diagnostic tool with Dr. Jennifer Ritzer and her team. The invention is currently featured in an article in the journal Nature Communication.

The gum works thanks to specific protein-degrading enzymes that are activated in the mouth If there are inflammatory conditions. In five minutes, these enzymes also break down a special ingredient of the chewing gum, releasing a bittering agent that could not be tasted before.

Meinel's team provided the proof that this principle actually works. First studies using the saliva of patients were conducted at Merli Dental Clinic in Rimini.

To launch the chewing gum into the market, Meinel's team plans to set up a company. The professor assumes that it will take two to three years for the gum to be commercially available.

Other applications
Chewing gum rapid tests for other medical applications are also presently under development, according to the JMU press release. “We hope to be able to diagnose other diseases with our ‘anyone, anywhere, anytime’ diagnostics to identify and address these diseases as early as possible,” Meinel explains.

Dr. Lühmann gives NutritionInsight the example of strep throat as a future possible application: “It is important to distinguish infections caused by either viruses or bacteria as bacterial and viral infections must be treated differently […] In the future patients will have access to a quick and affordable diagnostic system to test if they suffer from a viral or bacterial infection. Patients can then visit their doctors to confirm the diagnosis and to treat the disease with antibiotics in case of a bacterial infection, which would not help in case of a viral one.”

“This type of early and easy detection system might therefore also contribute to reducing antibiotic resistance in the future,” Lühmann concludes.

By Paul Creasy