Mercedes Gallas-Torreira

• PhD
• Senior Lecturer at University of Santiago de Compostela

Oral cancer ranks sixteenth amongst types of cancer by number of deaths. Many oral cancers are developed from potentially malignant disorders such as oral leukoplakia, whose most frequent predictor is the presence of epithelial dysplasia. Immunohistochemical staining using cell proliferation biomarkers such as ki67 is a complementary technique to i...

Objectives: The main purpose of this study was to assess the response of oral leukoplakia to CO2 laser vaporization treatment, as well as determining possible factors that may affect recurrence of lesions. Materials and methods: A retrospective study was conducted, in which the medical records of patients who had been clinically and histological...

The sentinel node biopsy (SNB) is highly protocolized in other cancers, however, this is not the case for oral squamous cell carcinoma patients, hence our objective was to evaluate the different protocols published. A specific study protocol was designed and subsequently registered on PROSPERO (Ref. CRD42021279217). Twenty‐three articles were inclu...

Burning mouth syndrome is a chronic condition, which is characterised by a burning sensation or pain in the mucosa of the oral cavity. Treatment options include antidepressants, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, analgesics, hormone replacement therapies and more recently photobiomodulation. This study aims to perform a systematic review with meta-an...

As a result of the current Sars-Cov-2 pandemic, the use of teledentistry (TD) has become much more widespread, as it allows for medical consultation while still maintaining social distancing measures. The objective of this chapter is to update the most relevant information on the use of TD, its advantages and disadvantages as well as the most impor...

Carbonic anhydrase IX (CAIX) is a hypoxia-related protein considered as a predictor for oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) biological behaviour. Nevertheless, this prognostic value is still yet to be validated. We aim to quantify prognostic significance of CAIX overexpression in OSCC by meta-analysis. We performed searches in MEDLINE, EMBASE, SCOP...

Exosomes have gone from being considered simple containers of intracellular waste substances to be considered important carriers of cellular signals. Its broad capacity to promote tumour growth, both in situ and metastatic, has greatly intensified scientific research on them. In the same way and depending on its content, its tumour suppressive prop...

Background: To evaluate the relationship between the plasmatic CD63 and CAV1 positive exosome levels, in patients with OSCC before and after surgical treatment and to correlate it with their overall survival. Methods: A double-blind pilot study over 10 patients OSCC and T4 stage without distant metastases or local bone invasion has been performe...

Background The Vertical Alveolar Distraction Osteogenesis (VADO) technique is an excellent solution for bone and soft tissue neoformation in areas in which there has been significant bone atrophy that hinders normal rehabilitation using dental implants. The goal of this systematic review is to analyze the most relevant articles published on VADO in...

This study compared the in vivo behavior of two biomaterials, xenograft (Bio-Oss®) and alloplastic tricalcium phosphate (Sil-Oss®), vs a control (no biomaterial) in beagle dogs treated with guided bone regeneration (GBR). Six male adult beagle dogs were included. The third and fourth mandibular premolars and first mandibular molars (3P3, 4P4 and 1M...

Background: Oral leukoplakia is the most common potentially malignant disorder (PMD) of the oral cavity. The objectives of this study are to determine the clinicopathologic features in a group of patients with oral leukoplakia of Northern Spain (Galicia), determining the factors associated to clinical risk and analyzing the malignant transformatio...

Background: Small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) are small non-coding RNA sequences whose most studied function is ribosome biogenesis. The altered expression of snoRNA is observed in tumoral processes such as breast cancer and multiple myeloma. However, we have not found any references to snoRNAs in oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) in the literature...

The use of endoseus implants is frequently limited by insufficient bone in the reception area as a result of trauma, tooth loss, poor surgical technique or periodontal disease. Several methods have been described to solve problems related to bone atrophy: regeneration with bone grafts, Guided Bone Regeneration (GBR) and Osteogenic Distraction (OD)....

The Fine-Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) of salivary glands provides essential information in making clinical decisions. The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of FNAC in the pre-surgical diagnosis of salivary glands, comparing it to the final histopathological study. FNACs and biopsies collected from patients from 2000-2013 period,...

Foreign body (FB) aspiration into the airway is lees common in adults than children. Nevertheless its incidence does not decrease through time. We present clinical relevant aspects of airway FBs on the basis of a selective review of pertinent literature retrieved by a search in the PubMed database. The most common aspirated FBs by adults are organi...

We described earlier the possible role of ATPaseC1 expression as a diagnostic and prognostic marker for oral cancer; others have reported its use for tumors of the lung and breast. We assessed ATPaseC1 expression in a sample of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) using tissue microarrays (TMAs) to analyze the relation between ATPaseC1 expression an...

Objectives: Downregulation of p21{Waf1/CIP1} (a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor) has been reported for mouth cancer. The goal of this article is to quantitatively report expression of p21{Waf1/CIP1} and evaluate its relationship with the clinical and prognostic factors. Materials and methods: this is a retrospective study of 68 patients diagno...

This study compares the validity of two different methods with linear and angular measurements (Olive-Basford's method and Olmos’ method) used as predictive methods of mandibular third molar impaction.MethodsA long-term follow-up study analyzing measurements over dental panoramic radiographs in three consecutive times (at the time of baseline evalu...

The presence and degree of dysplasia are important diagnostic and prognostic criteria for oral leukoplakia, but evaluation of dysplasia is difficult and subjective. Carbonic anhydrase-IX (CA-IX) is expressed primarily in tumor cells and is considered a specific hypoxia marker. We investigated the role of CA-IX in oral leukoplakia. We investigated 3...

Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI) and Shearography (ESPSI) techniques have been used in the field of non-destructive testing for a long time, providing accuracy, and allowing whole field analysis of pure deformation (ESPI) or the gradient of deformation (ESPSI). One of the major weaknesses of this two techniques is linked to speckle...

To estimate the prevalence of infrabony defects and their healing at the distal aspect of mandibular second molars (M2s) after extraction of impacted mandibular third molars (M3s). This prospective clinical study included 22 young healthy patients (21.03 ± 4.51 yr old). Thirty-seven surgical extractions of high-risk periodontal and mesioangular imp...

PURPOSE: To estimate the prevalence of preoperative periodontal defects and analyze 12-month spontaneous healing on the distal aspect of the mandibular second molar (M2) after impacted mandibular third molar (M3) extraction. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This prospective clinical study was conducted in 25 healthy young patients (21.03 ± 4.38 yr old) with...

Aim: To determine the influence of different local and systemic factors on histologic, histomorphometric, and radiographic outcomes after maxillary sinus augmentation. Materials and methods: Fifty-two sinus augmentation procedures were performed. Grafting material consisted of a mixture of anorganic bovine bone (ABB) and autogenous bone. After 6...

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the repeatability and radiographic accuracy of an intraoral paralleling technique to evaluate periodontal bone healing on the distal surface of the second mandibular molar (2 Mm) after impacted third mandibular molar (3 Mm) surgical extraction. Methods: In order to estimate the variation i...

This article is to describe a modified device for intraoral radiography which was developed to obtain reproducible radiographic images for assessment of distal osseous defects of the mandibular second molar (2 Mm) after impacted third molar (3 Mm) surgery. A commercial available alignment system for posterior region was modified by adding a referen...

Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI) has been used in experiments to measure displacement on the surface of bones undergoing external forces. However in order to asses directly the derivative of the displacements a related technique, Shearography, is used. This technique has been applied in biomechanical experiments although limited to...

The objective of this study was to analyze the possible morphological alterations of the surface implants after using 980-nm diode laser irradiation (InGalAsP) at various energies. Laser-based protocols have been proposed for decontaminating dental implant surfaces when treating peri-implantitis, although few studies have addressed this topic direc...

The aim of this study was to describe in vivo effects of scaling and root planing associated with 980-nm diode laser irradiation on periodontally diseased root surfaces. Rapid advances in the development of laser technologies used in dental offices demand careful evaluation of the respective histopathologic effects of each new system. There have be...

To measure and analyse noise levels in the learning-teaching activities at the Dental School of the University of Porto (Portugal). Sound levels were measured in five different practice areas and laboratories, selected as representative of a variety of learning-teaching activities. The noise levels were determined using a precision sound level mete...

Endosseous oral implants have been used as orthodontic anchorage in subjects with multiple tooth agenesis, and their application under orthodontic loading has been demonstrated clinically and experimentally. The aim of this investigation was to examine three-dimensional (3D) bone and implant finite element (FE) models. The first model assumed that...

The aim of this study was to evaluate clinical efficacy of InGaAsP diode laser as adjunct to traditional scaling and root planing. The use of laser is one of the most recent methods in nonsurgical periodontal treatment. Efficacy and side effects of each type of laser treatment have yet to be determined. Thirty patients suffering from moderate perio...

A three-dimensional finite element model of the human mandible was developed to simulate and analyse biomechanical behaviour in two standard trauma situations. This computer-based study was made to assess the stress patterns within human mandibles generated by impact forces. The mandibular model was generated using 7.073 nodes and 30.119 tetrahedra...

Maternity oral health can have an effect on fetal health. Maternal periodontal disease could be associated with preterm low birth weight (PLBW). The determination of risk factors for the delivery of PLBW represents a public health priority by its implications on survive, grow and mature of this babies. PLBW is a major determinant of neonatal infant...

The standard illumination set-up for measurement of in-plane displacement in electronic speckle pattern of interference (ESPI) requires the use of two oblique coherent beams for the illumination of the object. These two beams define a direction in the plane perpendicular to the optical axis in which the displacement can be measured, while in the pe...

The paresthesias of the inferior dental nerve consists of a complication that can occur after performing various dental procedures such as cystectomies, extraction of impacted teeth, apicoectomies, endodontic treatments, local anesthetic deposition, preprosthetic or implantologic surgery. The possible mechanisms of nervous lesions are mechanical, c...

A three-dimensional finite element model of a fractured human mandible treated with plating technique was developed to simulate and to study the biomechanical loads and the stress field distribution. Biomechanical properties of bone have been thoroughly investigated experimentally. In this work, using the finite element method, complete clinical co...

Late-life depression (LLD) initially occurs after age 65 and is a major public health concern because elderly people who are at high risk constitute an ever-expanding segment of the population. LLD is a mental illness in which mood, thought content, and behavioural patterns are impaired, causing individual distress, compromising social function and...

Plaque control is the main method for preventing periodontal diseases. Chlorhexidine digluconate mouthrinse is widely recognized as helping to maintain plaque control. Most of these mouthrinses contain alcohol, making them impractical for many patients, including those with oral mucosal hypersensitivity. Mouthrinses without alcohol might cause fewe...

Ankyloglossia is a developmental anomaly of the tongue characterized by a short, thick, lingual frenum resulting in limitation of tongue movement. The frenum is attached to the tip of the tongue in varying degrees. This study evaluates short lingual frenum and other associated pathologies (dentofacial anomalies and lingual dysglossia) and investiga...

Cleidocranial dysostosis, first described by Marie and Sainton in 1897, is characterized by complete or incomplete clavicular aplasia, an increased transverse cranial diameter, delayed ossification of the sutures and fontanelles, bone malformations, dental anomalies and hereditary transmission. These clinical features condition the extraoral appear...

A 55-year-old woman presented discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE) oral and skin lesions with the rare association of chronic desquamative gingivitis (CDG). The latter is not a characteristic manifestation of lupus erythematosus, and to our knowledge the present case is the first such association reported in the literature. An analysis is made of the...

The standard illumination set-up for in-plane displacement measurement in ESPI, required the use of two oblique coherent beams over the object. This two beams define a plane which it is perpendicular to the plane where the displacement it is measured. This system show sensibility just to displacement occurred in that plane and only in the direction...

An understanding of the mechanical behaviour of the human mandible during mastication may be useful in several specific medical fields that examine the maxillofacial area. In this research, the Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry Optical Technique was applied to study a dry mandible under external stress. Two images of the mandible, i.e. an i...

Although oral cancer accounts for less than 5% of all malignancies, approximately 50% of patients die as a result of the disease. For the dental clinician, prevention focuses on: a) promoting the reduction of tobacco and alcohol consumption, b) the early detection of already established oral cancer; and c) the identification and management of prema...

This study evaluated trismus and pain after removal of impacted lower third molars and investigated whether these responses were related to difficulty of surgery. A consecutive series of 104 patients, all of whom underwent removal of an impacted lower third molar under local surgery, was studied. Difficulty of surgery was evaluated on a modified ve...