Clinical
Our department is responsible for various disease of oral and maxillofacial region such as oral cancer, deformity, temporomandibular disorder, trauma, cyst, benign tumor, severe dental infection, salivary gland disease and so on. About 11,000 patients containing of 2,200 new patients which are referral from many community hospitals and private dental clinics have been visited at our department in a year. A reference rate of patients in our department has been above 80%. Annual case numbers of tooth extraction of outpatient have been around 1,900 in total and about 60% of them are cases of lower third molar extraction. There are about 250 inpatients of our department in a year. About 150 inpatients have a surgery for oral and maxillofacial disease under general anesthesia.
The Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
Education and Research
We lecture in Molecular Oral Medicine and Maxillofacial Surgery at the graduate school level. At the undergraduate level, we teach oral surgery, maxillofacial surgery, applied oral medicine and practical clinical course work. We especially place the great importance on research of oral cancer. We have studied not only a genetic and molecular diagnosis but therapy of oral cancer with serum-free culture technique, which had been established in our laboratory. The research contents are some growth factor molecules such as EGF, FGF, VEGF, HBp17 and their receptors, mechanism of tumor metastasis and invasion, cancer stem cells, immune mechanism of oral cancer and so on. We examined and treated 740 oral cancer patients for about 20 years. We performed not only conventional therapy for oral cancer but also novel therapies such as photodynamic therapy(PDT) for early oral cancer and adoptive immune therapy using NK/lymphokine-activated killer(LAK) cells for oral cancer based on these basic researches. We have made any other study such as method of diagnosis and therapy for congenital anomalies of oral and maxillofacial regions, basic research of regenerative medicine for jaw bones and teeth in vitro, establishment of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells)derived from patients of oral and maxillofacial disease and its culture techniques, establishment of disease specific iPS cells derived from some oral and maxillofacial disease (e.g. cleidocranial disostosis, Noonan syndrome, Von Recklinghausen disease and Cowden syndrome). We have searched bioactive substances from marine organisms to be applied novel anti-oral cancer drugs. This research has been collaborated with Nagoya University. And also, we performed molecular epidemic investigation related to oral and maxillofacial disease of people around Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site(SNTS) area in Kazakhstan, former Soviet Union from 2000 to 2005.
We promote researches to find new methods of diagnosis and therapy of oral and maxillofacial disease.
Research highlights
- Establishment of disease specific iPS cells from oral and maxillofacial disease patients
- Effect of low dose radiation for both undifferentiated character and sphere formation of cancer stem cell of oral squamous cell carcinoma cells
- Effect of low dose radiation for induction of iPS cells with Sendai virus vector under complete serum-free culture or non-feeder culture
- Establishment of cancer stem cells induced radiation
- Diversity between intestinal bacterial flora and oral bacterial flora of patients with oral cancer
- Proliferative regulation of HBp17/FGFBP-1 in squamous cell carcinoma cells via exosomal microRNA by active vitamin D3 derivative ED-71
- Investigation of the function of cell adhesion molecules in tumor progression
- Purification, structure characterization of bioactive substances from marine organisms and application them to novel anticancer drugs
Department of Molecular Oral Medicine and Maxillofacial Surgery