TBILISI STATE MEDICAL UNIVERSITY ANNALS OF BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH AND EDUCATION 2002 October/December, Volume 2, Issue 4 341 Prospects of Applying Bentonite Based Ointments in Conservative Dentistry Sophie Samkharadze*, Ketevan Gogilashvili**, Inga Dadeshidze***, Guram Tsagareishvili*** *Departament of Conservative Dentistry, Grigol Robakidze University, Tbilisi, Georgia **Department of Conservative Dentistry, Tbilisi State Medical University, Georgia ***Institute of Pharmaco-Chemistry of Georgian Academy of Sciences, Tbilisi, Georgia Abstract Bentonite compound - Clay (tikha) Ascane, which is permitted for medical application by the ministries of Health of Georgia and Russia for treatment of gastroenterological and dermatological diseases has been developed and investigated at the institute of Pharmaco-chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of Georgia. Ascancol - aqueous gel of Tikha-ascane, is used as a drying and anti-inflammatory remedy for treatment of skin ulcer, burns, skin chafing and bedsores. It is also used as an antacid and absorbent. Tikha-ascane does not cause allergy and skin sensibilization. The medication has a property of masking unpleasant tastes. Regarding all these, it is prospective to use Tikha-ascane and Ascancol for prevention and treatment of mucous membrane diseases. Keywords: bentonite, clay, conservative dentistry igh technologies are broadly used for production of efficient preparations in modern medicine and pharmacology, but such high- priced medications are often unavailable for patients. The investigation and study of the possibilities of effective use of Georgia's natural mineral wealth for making some new efficient medical facilities should be the most important tasks of our contemporary medicine. At the beginning of XX century hardly anyone could say that clay was a useful mineral, although people had been familiar with lots of its positive characteristics long ago. Nowadays practical importance of clay is connected to experimental sciences, special methods of which reveal its secrets. Bentonite is one of the sorts of clay, which is rightfully called a "miraculous clay". As we have already noted above, despite the fact that bentonite belongs to a category of modern useful minerals people in different regions of the world have been using some of its positive features since the ancient times. Experience preceded precise knowledge again. More concrete data concerning bentonite as an objective raw material, appeared at the end of XIX century. V. Talor began to obtain it in 1888 on his rancho in the state of Wyoming, USA [9]. It is known that clayey minerals basically consist of flint oxides, aluminum, magnesium, ferric and water. It was stated by the scientists who studied detailed crystalline structure of different clayey minerals, and it was also proved that the basic structure at atomic grid of the majority of clayey minerals consists of two main units. H