Ross award winners research alters treatment of periodontal patients

Rochester, N.Y.鈥擱etire? Some days he feels like he’s just getting started.

At 66, Dr. Jack Caton is the chair of the periodontics department and program director of the Periodontics Educational Program at the University of Rochester Eastman Dental Center. He also practices part time.

“It’s fun. It’s a good career,” he said, “and if you mix the practice in, it really makes it interesting.”

From his research on the significance of bleeding upon probing to his work in periodontal wound healing, Dr. Caton has spent a professional lifetime discovering ways to improve the way clinicians worldwide diagnose and treat periodontal disease.

For these accomplishments, he is the 2008 winner of the Norton M. Ross Award for Excellence in Clinical Research. The award is presented in memory of Dr. Norton Ross, a dentist and pharmacologist who contributed significantly to oral medicine and dental clinical research.

“Your extensive and very impressive work involving clinical research on periodontal disease, along with the publication of numerous studies in this area, has greatly contributed to the body of scientific knowledge in our profession,” wrote ADA President Mark J. Feldman in a congratulatory letter. “On behalf of your peers, I extend our deepest appreciation for your lifetime of work.”

Teaching and research was always part of Dr. Caton’s plan. A native Californian, he became interested in periodontics while in dental school at the University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry. After graduating in 1967, he spent three years in the U.S. Army Dental Corps before joining the Dental Research and Periodontology departments at EDC where famed researcher, Dr. Helmut Zander, became his mentor and inspired him to enter an academic career.

“He hooked me,” he said of Dr. Zander. “He was very funny and he took me into his family.”

Dr. Caton considered moving back to California over the years, but with both his practice and research established in Rochester, he and his wife decided to stay.

“This is a special place,” he said. “I felt I could be an effective educator and researcher and still practice on the side here. I enjoy the feedback I get from patients.”

Some of Dr. Caton’s patients have been with him for 35 years. He became the chair of EDC’s periodontology department in 1998.

Many of Dr. Caton’s studies have addressed the significance of bleeding upon probing and have resulted in showing the dental scientific community that this diagnostic parameter can be reliably used to assess periodontal health.

Assessment of subgingival probe tip penetration is considered the backbone of a periodontal exam. In his nominating letter, Dr. Gary Greenstein鈥攁 former student鈥攚rote that Dr. Caton’s clinical and histological assessments helped verify the importance of this. Dr. Greenstein also said that Dr. Caton’s investigations on the effect of periodontal surgery clearly demonstrated repair of the periodontal attachment structures rather than regeneration.

Several of Dr. Caton’s phase three clinical trials have resulted in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving commercial products, most notably Periostat鈥攖he first host modulation drug indicated for treatment of chronic periodontitis. He also established and named the Eastman Interdental-Bleeding Index.

In a clinical trial involving guided tissue regeneration, Dr. Caton “shepherded the first bioresorbable barrier, Vicryl Periodontal Mesh, through the approval process.”

Dr. Greenstein wrote that Dr. Caton’s studies “have altered the way clinicians diagnose and treat periodontal patients throughout the world.”

Dr. Caton compared studying the regeneration of tissue to “trying to grow a new finger.”

“We discovered that growing bone and soft tissue isn’t really a regeneration,” he said. “This led to taking a more biologic and scientific approach to wound healing, when trying to regenerate new tissues around the roots of periodontal-diseased teeth.”

A past president of the American Academy of Periodontology, Dr. Caton was the recipient of that organization’s 2004 Gold Medal Award and the 2006 William Jarvie and Harvey Burkhart Award from the New York State Dental Association. He remains active in the AAP as well as with its foundation. In 1993, he won the William J. Gies Periodontology Award for “Contributions to the Scientific Literature in Periodontology.”

He joked that Dr. Zander said, “If you hang in there long enough, you’ll win every award. When you starting getting the awards,” Dr. Caton said, “that’s when you know you’ve had it.”

He is currently researching new surfaces for dental implants. He acknowledges that juggling research, teaching and practicing is challenging, and nearly impossible for new dental academicians as federal grants and placements in clinical research become more and more competitive.

“Research can be lonely,” he said. “You spend a lot of time in labs and bent over a microscope. But I enjoy my job and I’m very fortunate. I get a kick out of answering questions that are useful in figuring out the best ways to manage patients.”

In June, Dr. Greenstein’s son, Benjamin, graduated from EDC.

His teacher and mentor? Dr. Jack Caton.

“We are the first legacy in the periodontal department at EDC and were both trained by Jack,” Dr. Greenstein said. “Jack had my greatest confidence that he would mold my son to think like a periodontologist with respect for the past and anticipation for the future.”

Since 1991, the Norton M. Ross Award has recognized investigators whose clinical research has had a meaningful impact on some aspect of clinical dentistry. Previous award winners represent a wide range of disciplines that have included dental materials, oral health issues, oral medicine, oral pathology, orofacial pain and periodontics.

As the 2008 Norton M. Ross Award winner, Dr. Caton will receive a plaque and a monetary award of $5,000 during a special dinner at ADA Headquarters in August. The award is sponsored by the ADA through the ADA Foundation and Johnson & Johnson Consumer and Personal Products Worldwide, Division of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies Inc.