Tooth Decay and fingerprints...

Photo of Prof Nigel Pitts, Pirie and Prof Stirrups

In the 21st century the word "fingerprinting" tends to be synonymous with "DNA" yet some form of academic battle will always ensue as to the relative merits of DNA fingerprinting: is it 100% accurate or not?, should it be used as conclusive evidence or shouldn't it be used? Samples of DNA get contaminated very easily, a wrongful conviction has already been made using DNA-fingerprinting as "conclusive" evidence...the arguments go on and they go on...

To add yet more fuel to the fire, final year dental student Martina Pirie started people wondering, "What about ordinary fingerprints and tooth decay?" when she took part in a student clinician competition and presented the findings of her elective period research at this month's Dentistry 2000 conference and exhibition in Birmingham - the biggest single international dental event of the year attracting at least 15,000 visitors from all over the world.

Martina's research, supervised by Dr Chris Longbottom, involved carrying out brief dental examinations of a sample group and recording and classifying their fingerprints before going on to study the relationship between the results of the dental examinations and the fingerprint data. Martina's results, although not statistically significant, perhaps because of the small group sample, did show an apparent trend between the two sets of data.

Martina said, "I was delighted with the level of interest from dental professionals who were initially surprised by the connection between tooth decay and fingerprints. Discussions were very stimulating and some valuable contacts were made."

Also at the conference and exhibition from the Dental Health Services Research Unit were researchers - Jan Clarkson, Chris Deery, Patsy Smith and unit administrator and exhibition and conference team co-ordinator, Marilyn Laird. Jan and Chris, also representing the British Society for Dental Research, presented an afternoon's interactive session on the concept of Evidence Based Dental Practice.

Jan explained: "The practice of evidence based dentistry involves integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic reviews. Because of the high volume of research published each year, often in specialist journals, general dental practitioners can often find it difficult to incorporate substantiated research findings into everyday practice. The DHSRU's multi-disciplinary team are looking at ways to facilitate uptake of new methodology by practitioners. Two exciting avenues of research currently being pursued are the establishment of a Scottish Dental Practice Based Research Network the study of clinical decisions surrounding the removal of third Molar teeth."

In keeping with the vogue of "new media", "interactive" was the key to the Dundee team's success at Dentistry 2000. They presented a visually attractive exhibition (photographs by Andy McKinlay, media services) with two full size interactive screens to display alongside a wide variety of other dental organisations, including the Dental Defence Agency, the British Dental Association Parliamentary Department, SmithKline Beecham and Ivoclar-Vivadent Limited. The interactive programmes, designed and produced by Dr Brian Bonner, Research Support Fellow, DHSRU and Mr Paul Hughes, IT Technician, Dental Hospital and School gave delegates the opportunity to learn more about some of the research presently underway in Dundee.

Despite being several thousand miles away at an International Association for Dental Research Conference in Washington DC Professor Pitts, Dean of the Dental School and Director of DHSRU, joined an international team of experts to debate the future of dentistry via a video presentation.

Professor Nigel Pitts commented on the conference: "This provided a superb opportunity to communicate the full range of research activities going on in Dundee to the whole of the UK field of dentistry. It was particularly useful to be able to communicate directly with as many practising dentists as possible. In order to put innovations into practice we have to build partnerships and dialogues with the dental team both nationally and internationally and this is just one of the new ways of taking it forward. A multi-disciplinary team from DHSRU and the Dental School put a lot of work into producing this innovative exhibition without whom our participation in the conference would not have been the success it was."

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