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PROVEN WINNERS

One of the hottest topics that I talk about in my dental lectures is about what is new in dentistry.  Dentists love new products and new technologies.  The biggest challenge with anything new is that there may not be any kind of long term testing or experience that would tell you whether or not this product or technology will be successful in the long run.  

We have all seen many new products come into dentistry only to be gone in six months or less because they either rapidly failed clinically or they just were not marketable ideas.  In this column, I have brought you many new ideas and products in dentistry but let’s take a step back.  Let’s see what was new a couple of years ago and look backwards and see if they have now withstood the test of time and are here to stay in dentistry.  

1.  Full zirconia crowns – While we don’t have 150 years worth of experience like we do to porcelain fused to metal crowns, full zirconia crowns have been the fastest growing crowns in the history of dentistry.  The biggest challenge with full zirconia has been esthetics but this has now been solved with such full zirconia crowns as Zir-Max (Burbank Dental Lab), and Opalite (Aurum Ceramics).  You now have unrivaled strengths and beautiful translucency now available in zirconia crowns.  This will continue to rise in their use, especially in the posterior regions of the mouth.  

2.  Injection comfort systems - these have finally made their way into dentistry.  In my 30 years of dentistry, every few years, another product would come out that would promise near painless injections, but they all failed to withstand the test of time.  The DentalVibe Injection Comfort System is really the first in the history of dentistry that has proven itself as a must-have in every single dental office to highly reduce or eliminate injection pain which is still one of the top fears of patients.  

3.  Dental lasers – dental lasers are now well proven in dentistry and every practice that should have a soft tissue diode laser.  When AMD Lasers introduced the Picasso Lite diode laser at a cost equivalent to an electrosurge unit, they finally opened access to lasers in dentistry with one of the best lasers on the market at the most affordable price.  Every dental office should have a soft tissue diode laser.

4.  Universal bulk fill composite -A truly universal bulk fill composite that can be easily used in every class of restoration has been missing in dentistry until the introduction of G-aenial by GC America.  Since it’s introduction a few years ago, of which many dentists were initially skeptical of how a thick flowable composite could indeed restore large class II restorations, it has truly taken the dental industry by storm.  Filling a cavity preparation with this bulk fill universal composite greatly reduces the placement time of every restoration and there is no additional expensive equipment needed.  I have used a lot of composite resins in my day and this has done an outstanding job in my office since its inception.  

5.  Botox and dermal fillers in dentistry – these are now a mainstay in thousands of dental offices in North America and indeed, around the world.  Their use for dental esthetic and dental therapeutic uses keeps growing every single day.  I see this literally happening before my eyes with the very rapidly increasing membership in The American Academy of Facial Esthetics, of which I am president, and the incredible discussions on the membership forum board of how dentists are now using these products in their practice for uses including orthodontics, periodontics, prosthodontics, esthetics and facial pain management cases.  

It is always interesting to look forward and see what is new and exciting coming into dentistry.  It is equally incredibly rewarding to look backwards and see that some of the concepts and products that I have been talking about for a few years have really become part and parcel of dentistry.  These are truly now evidenced-based as they have the necessary science as well as actual experience by thousands of dentists and have now withstood the test of time, where dentists have seen the evidence right before their eyes in their daily treatment with patients.