Dental Caries and Pulpal Responses course for Dental Practice

This session discusses the pathophysiological responses of the pulp to dental caries and the natural reparative processes of the tissues.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Describe the anatomical appearance of the dentine and pulp in caries
• Describe the natural repair response of the pulp to caries
• Describe the process of reactionary and reparative tertiary dentinogenesis

The dentine-pulp complex displays exquisite regenerative potential in response to injury. Carious lesions stimulate reparative responses from the existing odontoblasts or, if severe enough, stimulate differentiation of a new generation of odontoblast-like cells to secrete a tertiary dentine. This process however can be severely compromised with increasing inflammatory responses from within the pulp which eventually negate these repair processes and lead ultimately to abscess formation and pulpal necrosis.