Lecture Synopsis

Survival of Cracked Teeth

It has always been controversial whether to save cracked teeth or extract them and replace with implants. Cracked teeth are teeth with incomplete tooth fracture and they sometimes require root canal treatment. Usually outcome studies of root canal treatment investigate the success rate of root canal treatment per se. This lecture will highlight the survival of root-filled cracked teeth in a tertiary institution. The factors affecting their survival will also be discussed.

About the speaker

Dr Lisa Tan graduated from the University of Singapore in 1996. She went to Eastman Dental Institute in London to obtain MSc in Endodontics in 1999. After graduation, she worked in National Dental Centre from 1999 to 2005 before leaving for private practice. She now works in a group practice and teaches in the University part-time.

Tissue Engineering in Endodontics

Although current root canal treatment modalities offer high levels of success for many conditions, an ideal form of therapy might consist of regenerative approaches in which diseased or necrotic pulp tissues are removed and replaced with healthy pulp tissue to revitalize teeth. Regenerative endodontics is the creation and delivery of tissues to replace diseased, missing, and traumatized pulp. Such approaches will provide an innovative and novel biologically based new generation of clinical treatments for endodontic disease.

A population of multipotent mesenchymal progenitor cells known as dental pulp stem cells with high proliferative potential for self-renewal has been described. The nature of these stem cell populations in the pulp is of importance in understanding their potentialities and development of isolation or recruitment strategies, and allowing exploitation of their use in regeneration and tissue engineering. This presentation will provide an overview of regenerative endodontics and its goals, and describes preliminary findings with a novel biosynthetic scaffold that may have potential use in pulp tissue engineering.

About the speaker

Dr Lui Jeen Nee
Senior Registrar
National Dental Centre of Singapore

Dr Lui Jeen Nee graduated with a Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1996. She obtained her Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) (Endodontics) from NUS and Membership in Restorative Dentistry (MRD) from the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh in 2003. In 2005, she received the Human Manpower Developmental Plan (HMDP) award from Singapore Health Services for further training in endodontic microsurgery and was visiting faculty to the Department of Endodontics, School of Dental Medicine, Columbia University, USA from April 2006 – April 2007. While at Columbia University, she also collaborated in research on pulp tissue engineering with the Biomaterials and Interface Tissue Engineering Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr Lui is currently in clinical practice limited to endodontics as a Senior Registrar in the Department of Restorative Dentistry, National Dental Centre. She is a fellow of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore and holds the appointment of Clinical Teacher at the Faculty of Dentistry, NUS.

About The Speaker

Dr Lee Chee Wee completed his undergraduate dental training in year 2000 and thereafter joined the Singapore Armed Forces as an uniformed Dental Officer. After 2 years of postgraduate experience, he embarked on his Specialty training as an SAF trainee in NUS/NUH. He passed the required exit exams for his Basic Specialty Training in year 2005 and was conferred Masters of Dental Surgery and Membership in the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.

In year 2007, Dr Lee was assigned to be the Dental Officer-in-Charge for SAF Dental Mission in Afghanistan. He was then awarded the SAF Overseas Service Medal upon successful completion of the mission.

In the 8 years that Dr Lee spent in the Armed Forces, he attained the rank of Major and had taken up several appointments, which had expanded his horizon and his aptitude as an administrator. His final appointment was the Head of Specialist Dental Centre in the Military Medicine Institute (MMI). This appointment dictates him to command the operations of all the SAF Dental Centres as well as the MMI Specialist Dental Clinic which is an accredited specialist training centre approved by Singapore Dental Council.