Inflammatory response of the human tooth pulp tissue to dental caries

Introduction: Dental caries is a chronic infectious disease resulting from the penetration of oral bacteria into tooth hard tissues. Microorganisms subsequently trigger inflammatory responses in the dental pulp and the stem cells provide a source of cells to replace the damaged cells and facilitate repair. These events can lead to pulp healing if the infection is not too severe and treated in a short time. Remaining pulpal pathosis in severe form without treatment induces permanent loss of normal tissue due to limited repair capacities in response to large damage. The importance of the depth of inflammation has been underestimated in pulpal healing. The purpose of this study is to investigate the pulp tissue response to dental caries and to find out the association of different distributions of the inflammatory characteristics among a different depth of dental caries. Materials and Methods: Pulp tissue samples were collected from 118 extracted teeth from the Privet dental clinics and dental health centers in Duhok government, from April/ 2016 to August/ 2017 (16 months period). Each section prepared and stained with hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E). Inflammatory infiltration, fibrosis, calcification, and necrosis were the main features that have been examined histopathologically and assessed with the presence of dental caries at a different depth. Results and Discussion: Inflammatory features were identified in 88 of the samples examined. Inflammatory infiltration and fibrosis were the most frequent features among the deep caries teeth compared to the shallow caries teeth. Single and group of calcification were observed in 57 samples, most of them (48 samples) were in deep caries sections. Conclusion: the histopathological observations of pulp tissue in response to caries process provide useful information for the clinical aspect and how to decide and select the best strategy in the treatment of dental caries at a different depth to preserve the pulp tissue vitality for a longer time, and strength of the tooth hard tissue will maintain.