Nassif Alessandra Cristina da Silva, Tieri Fabio, da Ana Patricia Aparecida, Botta Sérgio Brossi, Imparato José Carlos Pettorossi
Faculdade de Odontologia, Universidade de São Paulo, Banco de Dentes Humanos, São José dos Campos, Brasil.
Pesqui Odontol Bras. 2003 May;17 Suppl 1:70-4. doi: 10.1590/s1517-74912003000500012. Epub 2003 Aug 14.
A Human Teeth Bank (HTB) is a nonprofit institution, associated to a college, to a university or to some other institution. Its purpose is to fulfill academic needs, by supplying human teeth for research or for preclinical laboratory training of students, thus eliminating the illegal commerce of teeth that still takes place in dental schools. It is also up to an HTB to work for the elimination of cross-infection caused by indiscriminate handling of extracted teeth. In order to work properly, an HTB should have a strict control of its internal procedures, which include separation and stocking of teeth, as well as an appropriate maintaining of donors' and beneficiaries' records. In this article, we discuss the functions that an HTB can perform, and how the Human Teeth Bank, School of Dentistry, University of S o Paulo, works and organizes itself today.
