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Profile: Study Says Stem Cells in Baby Teeth May Be a Lifesaver
NBC News: Today
08 June 2005
KATIE COURIC, co-host:
We're back at 8:10. Well, apparently the Tooth Fairy might be onto something. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health are announcing this morning that banking your child's baby teeth could possibly be a lifesaver some day soon. Dentist and medical reporter Dr. Christine Dumas is here to explain.
Hey, Christine, good morning.
Dr. CHRISTINE DUMAS reporting:
Good morning.
COURIC: This is such an interesting study. Let's first of all talk about the fact that some parents these days request that their baby's umbilical cord blood be saved and stored. Why is that? Why are people doing that, first of all?
DUMAS: Scientists have found that if they pull the stem cells from that umbilical cord blood, you can help with a host of diseases: childhood leukemia, some cancers, immune disorders that would have had to have been treated with bone marrow. The problem, though, with parents who are considering it is, A, it's not cheap. We're talking about 1500 to $2,000, you know, on top of what it costs to have a baby.
COURIC: Right.
DUMAS: Maybe 1 to $200 a year banking fees, and on top of that, when you're having a baby and you're stressed out enough, to make that decision right then and there, you know, is difficult. So they're thinking, `Do I do it? Is it worth--is it worth the money and the time and trouble to do it?'
COURIC: And now there might be a different way, which is fascinating, and it involves the baby teeth. Tell me about that and how researchers discovered that these might have be a valuable source of stem cells themselves.
DUMAS: In the research done at NIH, and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, they found in an interesting way, that possibly from the inside, from the pulp of baby teeth, you could find stem cells that could help with bone production and with neural tissue.
COURIC: How was the discovery made?
DUMAS: It's really interesting. The researcher who was working at NIH had been doing stem cell research with bone marrow and he had a six-year-old daughter who knew, and it was interesting because besides being a researcher, he's been trained in his first life as a pediatric dentist. So his daughter, who usually goes to the mom for everything, took the tooth that was about to come out--`It's my tooth, Dad'--and dad takes the baby tooth out, looks inside and has this ah-ha moment, sees pulp and says, `I think I could maybe get stem cells from here.' So takes it to work the next day...
COURIC: Extracts it very carefully, I'm assuming, right?.
DUMAS: ...he--yeah, very ca--very--it was about to come out. Takes it, looks inside and says, `Hm, I see blood vessels,' which is where the stem cells live, `I can work with this.' So he waits now, expectantly, for her next tooth to come out, and he's prepared. I mean, he has culture medium in the car. He goes at midnight, runs to the lab, and indeed finds stem cells and he says, you know, `This is it, we're in business.'
COURIC: What has he said about the difference between stem cells found in umbilical cord blood and in the middle of baby teeth?
DUMAS: OK. In umbilical cord blood, you find blood stem cells which help with conditions like leukemia. What you see in the baby teeth stem cells are stem cells that can help with bone. And it's interesting because he figures that the stem cells in the baby teeth actually are the ones who give the order to make bone to surround the permanent tooth that will come in.
COURIC: Mm-hmm.
DUMAS: So he said they knew they they had blueprint to make bone. And also, teeth come from the same basic start where neuro cells come from. So he figured you could get nerve help and you could hel--have bone reconstruction. And he believes that down the road you'll be able to help with conditions like Parkinson's, which is, you know, a big condition that effects the elderly. So he was really good about that.
COURIC: So, obviously, if you--if you have some baby teeth that maybe the Tooth Fairy left behind somehow...
DUMAS: Yeah.
COURIC: ...and you know in a drawer or something, they're not viable. These have got to be newly pulled or newly lost?
DUMAS: Yeah, newly lost. So what you're looking at, it has to be new. I mean, they have to come out--it's almost like picking fruit when it's ripe, right?
COURIC: Right.
DUMAS: If, you know how kids hang, or if tooth sits or it hangs around for a long time...
COURIC: That grosses me out. I hate that.
DUMAS: ...yeah, that's gross. Can't happen. It has to be right away, what you want to do, is all a parent will have to do to bank these teeth is to put it--there'll--there'll be a medium, but if you don't have the medium--and I wouldn't be the one who had the medium--I would be--you know, because I can't find my keys in the morning--it would be, you can put it in milk. You wrap it in an ice pack, you know, the kind you can get at Walgreen's or something...
COURIC: Right.
DUMAS: ...and then you FedEx it, next day air, and it'll be able to go to a bank, which they're about to start the banks. The banks haven't opened--you know, the banking centers haven't opened yet, you know, because NIH can't...
COURIC: Right.
DUMAS: ...you know, they can't do both things. So it has to be an outside company just because they're not in the business of baning.
COURIC: And, Christine, are some teeth more--you know, better for this than other teeth? Like front teeth, for example?
DUMAS: What you want to do is you--the best teeth, and I think we have a picture, are those...
COURIC: Those four front teeth?
DUMAS: ...front four teeth. So if you look at your child's smile, you want to look at the two--and you can see that they have spaces between them.
COURIC: Right.
DUMAS: If you take a look at a five-year-old, the two spac--the front two teeth, because they have the biggest pulp chambers inside.
COURIC: Hm, inter--so interesting.
DUMAS: And then--yeah, and the upper teeth are your best. So you want to just go in there and you can--really, you can help your child down the road. I mean, my nephew hasn't had--hasn't lost his first--first teeth yet, but when that first one goes I'm going to be ready with the milk and the FedEx pack ready to go. So I'm...
COURIC: All right. Christine, we're out of time. Thanks very much. And we'll be back right after this.
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