摘要
近五年來，牙齒幹細胞新知一日千里。牙醫研究者已藉由乳齒及智齒的牙髓組織和牙周韌帶組織，分別培養出各種不同的人類牙齒幹細胞。這些不同來源的牙齒幹細胞，在囓齒動物移植實驗中，可以分化為牙本質母細胞，進而形成牙本質，或分化成為牙髓結構，或形成牙骨質。此一進展可能成為牙醫在臨床植牙或替代牙上的治療工具，使病患長出自己真正的替代牙齒。然而，以真的替代牙作為牙齒治療的理想，目前還處在起步的階段，因為人類牙齒幹細胞的研究中還是存有許多顧慮。雖說這些所顧慮的問題甚為棘手，且非研究者短期可以解決，不過科學家們還是努力尋求可行之道。用組織工程或自體再生填補等變化，人類牙齒幹細胞也許很快就可以應用於現階段之牙醫臨床。本文旨在簡介新知，並提出淺見以瞻遠景來分享讀者。
並列摘要
The studies on human dental stem cells have been greatly progressed during recent five years. Dental researchers isolated several lines of human stem cells from the pulps and the periodontal ligament of the exfoliated deciduous teeth and the extracted third molar respectively. All these lines have been proven for their capability of differentiation into odontoblast, dentin, pulp, or cementum in vivo. This creates the hopes to use the patientspecific natural tooth in transplantation and the substitute human tooth for implantation in dental clinics. However, using true human tooth in clinics is still in the beginning stage right now. There are a lot of considerations which have been discussed here. Because the problems can not be solved in a short period of time, scientists are searching for some alternative ways to use the best of these newly developed human dental stem cells. Both bioengineered human tooth or self-filling cell therapy are the examples of these possible ways which may benefit dental clinics sooner than we expected. This article is namely to serve as a short review on the study of dental stem cells and to share our prospective view of using these cells for clinical purpose with readers.