Author: Edlich RF, Cochran AA, Cross CL, Wack CA, Long III WB, Newkirk AT.
Source: International Journal of Toxicology.
Year: 2008
Comment:
Abstract / Excerpt:
In 2008, Norway banned the use of mercury for amalgam restorations. Four states in the United States have developed In-formed Consent Brochures for amalgam restorations that must be given to their dental patients. The authors describe a patient who had a large cavity in his left lower molar tooth no.18 that had to be removed by an oral surgeon. When the patient went to the oral surgeon, the surgeon told the patient that he would replace the carious tooth with a gold implant. He was not given an Informed Consent Brochure regarding dental restorative materials. The oral surgeon extracted the carious tooth, replacing the tooth with a sup-posed gold crown implant. On his yearly dental examination, his dentist took an x-ray of his dental implant and explained that the x-ray could not distinguish whether the implant contained either gold or mercury. Consequently, the dentist referred him to a dental clinic in which the dental implant could be removed without mer-cury contamination of the patient’s neurologic system during the extraction of the implant from the root canal. During the removal of the dental restoration, the dentist found build up expanding into the root canal that had a black color. The crown and underlying tooth were sent to ALT BioScience for analysis. Elemental analy-sis of the crown and underlying tooth confirmed the presence of mercury in the restoration. The patient should have been given an Informed Consent Brochure by the dentist that described the dental restoration that was used in the dental implant.
Citation: Edlich RF, Cochran AA, Cross CL, Wack CA, Long III WB, Newkirk AT. Legislation and informed consent brochures for dental patients receiving amalgam restorations. International Journal of Toxicology. 2008; 27(4):313-6.