The episode of the birth of EMAT(Electro-Magnetic Apical Treatment)

After graduating from the University of Tokushima Faculty of Dentistry, I spent four years in the Department of Pediatric Dentistry at the University of Tokushima Faculty of Dentistry.
　I then worked for a total of five years as a practitioner in Anan City and Tokushima City, and in 2000, I opened my dental clinic in Seto-cho, Naruto City, Tokushima Prefecture, where it is now located.
　When my working period started, the first bottleneck was endodontic treatment (root canal treatment). There is not a day that goes by that any dentist does not extract wisdom teeth, but there is not a day that goes by that he or she does not perform endodontic treatment. At that time, I was seriously engaged in endodontic treatment, fully utilizing the knowledge I had learned at university.
　One day, a 12-year-old junior high school girl came to the clinic with "pain in her upper left anterior tooth.
The cavity had already reached the pulp, and I had to perform root canal treatment.
Using my shallow experience and knowledge at the time, I cleaned the inside of the root as best I could and finished the treatment that day.

　

Although this dental treatment took a long time, I treated as best I could as usual and thought there was no problem.
One week later, the junior high school girl came to our clinic again. She said,
"It hurts a little when I chew."
I diagnosed it as Pain due to treatment stimulation, and continued the cleaning as usual that day and put medicine in the tooth.
　Then I told her, "I can fill it with the final medication at your next visit." I told her. But every time she came to see me and I touched the inside of the root, her tooth started to hurt more and more, and the pain only worsened.I decided that endodontic treatment would not cure the problem and decided to perform a surgical procedure.
　I decided that endodontic treatment would not cure the problem and decided to perform a surgical procedure.
　As a result, I explained to her that I would extract the tooth once, cut out apexthe root apex, and put it back in place again, called " apicoectomy”apex and “replantation," and she readily accepted.
　After the tooth was extracted, I was astonished. To my surprise, the root canal (the canal through which the nerve runs) was split in two.

Here, I would like to briefly explain about teeth. (Figure 1)
　Teeth are much like houses. When you build a house, there is always ground work.
　There must be a foundation in the ground that is stronger than the visible part of the house.
　It is the same with teeth.
　The part of the tooth that is visible in the mouth is called “crown”, and the part that is in the gums is called “root”.
The tooth is then surrounded by bone called “alveolar bone”, which is covered by the gums.

Let's take a closer look at the tooth root.

Inside the root of the tooth, there is a cavity called a "root canal" that contains nerves and blood vessels. (Figure 2)
　It is easy to understand if you imagine a cream-filled donut.
　Let's get back to the story.
The area I thought I had cleaned up to the apex of the root was actually the intersection area far above the apex. (Figure 3)
　In other words, the nerve had been left out.
　It was a complete diagnostic error on my part, and after explaining this to her, I completed the operation according to the common practice.
　 I realized then that while it is important for a tooth to look good, it is more important that it is firmly implanted in the bone. I was shocked and depressed for a few months.
I was 29 years old at the time, and from that time on, I began going to Osaka and Kyoto two to three times a month to study.
　At that time, new instruments made of superelastic titanium alloy were being released one after another from Europe and the U.S., and I was training myself to master their use on a daily basis.
　Thanks to these efforts, a few years later, around 1998, I was asked by a dental manufacturer to become a lecturer, and I was able to give lectures in various prefectures.
　In 2005, Morita Corporation introduced an extremely efficient cleaning device called the "EndoWave," and from the time it was first released, I began holding training sessions throughout Japan as an instructor for Morita.
　The following year, 2006, I invented a new root canal cleaning procedure,
"EndoWave All-Ranges version," and I felt that I had perfected my own procedure of cleaning root canals. (Figures 4 and 5)」

However, there was one drawback here.
　That is, no matter how clean we cleaned the inside of the root canal, we could not clean the area around the root at all.
　Therefore, although we tried various agents that could be applied, there were several cases a year in which the progress was not satisfactory, and we sometimes had to finally move on to surgical treatment.
　For this reason, in a patient with a large amount of dissolved bone around the root(Fig. 6),
I could only say, "Let's try root canal treatment, just in case," and I was frustrated for a long time.
　I would say, "Let's do a root canal just to see if it heals. I hope this will help."
　I could only say, "Let's try root treatment just in case," and the period of toothache continued for a long time.

It was around July 2005.
　I had always used a high-frequency therapy device to sterilize the nerves in the roots of teeth for quite some time, and I had our clinic crew prepare it for me before each day's treatment as a matter of course. What is a high-frequency therapy device...? It is easy to understand if you imagine a "toaster " that every household has. In other words, it generates heat with the power of electric current and uses that heat to kill germs.
　Therefore, in routine root canal treatment, high-frequency conduction were always applied to the root canal to sterilize it before a filling was placed in the canal.
On a hot and humid summer evening, I was doing my usual charting with my colleague.
I was preparing to give a lecture in Osaka the following week,
when I suddenly wondered, "What would happen if we applied high-frequency conduction around the roots of the teeth?" I thought because the bacteria around the roots can't be cleaned, why not sterilize them with heat?
The idea was simple. And so, the next day, I experimented with a raw egg white.
When I applied electric current for a few seconds, I could observe that the white had slightly hardened to about 1 mm at the tip of the file.
　I thought, "This will work!
　No side effects on the human body because the fever is momentary.!"
Over the next several months, we repeated the experiment many times and continued to collect data.
　It was February 2006. When I was cleaning up after the clinic as usual, I received a call from an acquaintance that his right cheek had become swollen.
He said he had been feeling funny when he chewed for about two days, but he was too busy with work to come to the clinic. I told him to come right away and started to prepare for the examination.
　When we actually looked inside his mouth, we found that his upper right tooth was in a dangling position and looked as if it was about to fall out.
　Should I pull it out and insert an dental implant?” I asked him.
I thought to myself, “This tooth is not going to last.” But I also wanted to avoid pulling it out when he was just over 20 years old. So, I decided to give him a root canal.
I asked him, "It may not work, but would you like me to sterilize it by applying high-frequency conduction to the area around the root?" I asked him.
Would it be possible without pulling it out?" He looked anxious.
　I can't say for sure, but the conventional treatment won't cure it. I think it is worth a try. If this doesn't work, I'm afraid the only way is to have it extracted.
Needless to say, he immediately agreed.
　Dental implant is a wonderful treatment technique, but it takes at least four months for the teeth to come in. And the final product is artificial. Of course everyone would prefer to have the teeth they were born with. So I did a treatment that I had considered many times, which is to apply high-frequency conduction around the root of the tooth. The treatment took less than an hour.
　He left with a relieved expression on his face, probably because the pain had subsided.
A week later, he came back to my clinic. How was the pain? I asked him.
He answered, "It was uncomfortable that day, but the next day it was like there was never any pain."
Then, I slowly moved the treatment table down and examined the inside of his mouth.

To my surprise, the tooth movement had completely disappeared. Normally, a tooth that moves vertically should be extracted, which is the general rule in dentistry. To be honest, I was wondering if the movement was getting better....
I moved the tooth like that.
　Despite this, the tooth did not move, but was firm to the extent that it was not different from the normal state.
I told him, "Maybe it will stay..."
　I said this to him. He seemed even happier than I was. This was the birth of EMAT (Electro-Magnetic Apical Treatment).

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