Inflammatory response of the human tooth pulp tissue to dental caries

Introduction: Dental caries is a chronic infectious disease resultingfrom the penetration of oral bacteria into tooth hard tissues.Microorganisms subsequently trigger inflammatory responsesin the dental pulp and the stem cells provide a source of cells toreplace the damaged cells and facilitate repair. These events canlead to pulp healing if the infection is not too severe and treatedin a short time. Remaining pulpal pathosis in severe form withouttreatment induces permanent loss of normal tissue due to limitedrepair capacities in response to large damage. The importanceof the depth of inflammation has been underestimated in pulpalhealing. The purpose of this study is to investigate the pulp tissueresponse to dental caries and to find out the association of differentdistributions of the inflammatory characteristics among a differentdepth of dental caries. Materials and Methods: Pulp tissue sampleswere collected from 118 extracted teeth from the Privet dental clinicsand dental health centers in Duhok government, from April/ 2016 toAugust/ 2017 (16 months period). Each section prepared and stainedwith hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E). Inflammatory infiltration, fibrosis, calcification, and necrosis were the main features that have beenexamined histopathologically and assessed with the presence of dentalcaries at a different depth. Results and Discussion: Inflammatoryfeatures were identified in 88 of the samples examined. Inflammatory infiltration and fibrosis were the most frequent features amongthe deep caries teeth compared to the shallow caries teeth. Single andgroup of calcification were observed in 57 samples, most of them (48samples) were in deep caries sections. Conclusion: the histopathological observations of pulp tissue in response to caries process provideuseful information for the clinical aspect and how to decide and selectthe best strategy in the treatment of dental caries at a different depthto preserve the pulp tissue vitality for a longer time, and strength ofthe tooth hard tissue will maintain.