How caries will be treated in the future
Dentistry does not stand still. Diagnostic technologies, anesthesia methods, and new filling materials are being improved every year… So how will common caries be treated in the future?
Diagnostics
The dentistry of the future surprises right from the start: the patient is examined by an “electronic doctor” – a diagnostic complex consisting of a computer tomograph, 3D printer, scanner, microscope, and video camera. The role of the dentist has changed: he no longer has to lean over his patient with a mirror, and all information is quickly and accurately gathered by the computer. All a person has to do is analyze it and make the right diagnosis.
In addition, the doctor must explain the diagnosis to the patient. To do this, he prints on a 3D printer a model of the tooth, on which the areas affected by decay are marked, and agrees on a treatment plan.
Anesthesia
After that, the dentist takes over the treatment. The main drug for local anesthesia has not changed – common today anesthetics based on articaine work almost perfectly, here nothing had to be improved. But in the future, syringes have been improved (now they are available with electronic dispensers, and the required dosage is calculated individually from the information in each patient’s file), and also a means for quick termination of anesthesia is used, the development of which has only just begun these days.
For people who are panic-stricken by injections, an alternative is offered – a nasal anesthetic spray. A spray in the nose and you can get to work… Such an elegant solution to the problem has been proposed these days by scientists from the University of Pennsylvania. Their research showed that nasal anesthesia works perfectly well in 88% of patients so injections are no longer necessary.
Great importance is given to creating a comfortable environment for the patient and distracting his attention from unpleasant thoughts. Specially selected music, massage chairs, and video glasses await you in the dentistry of the future. And sedation (immersion into a drug-induced sleep) has been perfected to such an extent that patients now experience the real pleasure of dental treatment, just as a person would experience in a sweet slumber.
Dentistry of the future – it feels good!
Filling
Now that the patient has relaxed and dozed off, the dentist gets to work. The doctor treats the cavity with a laser, removing the affected dentin and enamel exactly within the healthy tissue.
The tooth is then filled. And the filling in the future has changed dramatically – today’s common materials based on artificial cement and other fillers have been abandoned, because they interfere with the restoration of mineral balance. In the future, a collagen biodegradable sponge with a substance that activates stem cells in the tooth will be used as a filling. The sponge will dissolve over time and dentin will form in its place in the tooth, replacing the losses caused by decay. This technology was recently proposed by scientists at King’s College UK in the pages of Scientific Reports.
Prevention
But the main innovation in dentistry of the future is not in the technology, materials, or tools, but in the use of information.
The unified electronic patient database with treatment history, which is already in place at DMC Tour, has to be seriously expanded in the future. Patient information files are now kept from the age of three to four years, allowing dentists to develop individual treatment plans for each person. This approach has already been implemented in the Scandinavian countries and has shown its effectiveness, we can expect that in the next 20-30 years it will spread around the world, including here in Antalya. The information base allows dentists to create and adjust individual preventive programs.
Now all preventive surgery (plastic frenulum of the upper lip and tongue, vestibulopathy, etc.) is carried out before the age of 20. This approach significantly reduces the number of complex dental cases and will reduce the number of “aesthetic” surgeries (teeth alignment, whitening, etc.).
In the future, dentistry is not medicine of disease, but the medicine of health.
