Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
offspring were found to have changes to their genital and cranial nervous system as well as accu-
mulation of titanium dioxide in their testes and brain in 6-week-old offspring
[49]
. This data sug-
gests that titanium dioxide may harm the developing mouse embryo. Pregnant mice were injected
intraperitoneally with fullerene (C
60
)
[50]
. At a dose of 137 mg/kg of body weight, all the embryos
died. At a dose of 50 mg/kg of body weight, 50% of the embryos were abnormal in shape espe-
cially in the head and tail areas. A clinical concern with these two examples is that nanoparticle
drug delivery systems might have teratogenic effects in pregnant women who are exposed to them.
24.4
Conclusions
Even though there are wide arrays of promising applications, a concern with the use of orally deliv-
ered nanoparticle drug delivery systems in dentistry is that the nanoparticles might be inherently
toxic. Many toxicology studies on nanoparticles are with the inhalation of particles with a size of
10
m or less. Three important factors that can contribute to the toxicity of a nanoparticle are size,
shape, and charge. Two common major mechanisms of toxicity are cell lysis and apoptosis. The
absorption, distribution metabolism, and excretion, i.e., toxicokinetics can affect the toxicity of
nanoparticles. A broad classification of toxic effects, i.e., toxicodynamics caused by nanoparticles
are acute and chronic, genotoxic and carcinogenic, and reproductive and developmental. The major-
ity of the toxicology literature is in animal models with few examples in humans. More rigorous
studies need to be conducted on the safety of nanoparticle drug delivery systems when used in den-
tistry by clinicians and scientists of these important drug delivery systems in order to safeguard the
patient's health.
μ
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