July 27, 2016

The patient goal of shortening orthodontic treatment time is not new. It has only been in the last several years that orthodontists have had practical, cost-efficient options to meet this long-held patient desire. I view offering accelerated treatment as critical to the future success of my practice, particularly at a time when adult starts are outpacing slow growth in overall treatment starts.

July 25, 2016

In real estate, it’s all about location, location, location. In dentistry, it’s also about location, and that certainly was the case for Dr. Monica Garnache. Many dentists who own or work with an Aspen Dental-branded practice join Aspen after getting a taste of private practice. But Garnache took a different route on her way to owning multiple Aspen Dental practices.

July 22, 2016

Technology is one of the biggest investments that a dental practice will make, and intraoral sensors are among one of the first tools dentists invest in before going 100 percent digital. There are many considerations when choosing a sensor: size/sizes, integration, service and support, return on investment, and cost. To protect your investment, ongoing sensor care and maintenance are critical right from the start.

July 19, 2016

Today’s new and innovative technologies hold a great potential to improve oral health and advance dental care. One of those budding technologies is evident in the ACTIVA BioACTIVE product range (Pulpdent, USA). As part of a new class of esthetic, bioactive restorative dental materials, it offers an alternative to traditional composite restoratives and delivers direct benefits to dentists and patients.

July 6, 2016

The existence and preservation of attached keratinized gingiva around natural teeth and dental implants plays an important role in periodontal and peri-implant health. This article describes a novel surgical technique that addresses multiple adjacent Miller Class II and III recession defects in a predictable one-staged surgical procedure. The goals of treatment are to improve esthetic outcomes and gain clinical attachment and keratinized tissue levels in addition to possible root coverage.

June 23, 2016

It surprises me how often I meet orthodontists who bring up the challenges of hiring great employees for their practice. Finding and retaining good people can be hard. In fact, mis-hiring is far more costly than most of us realize. For example, you hire someone who leaves after only four months on the job; you may think that your loss is the four months of salary for that employee.

June 22, 2016

Most dental professionals, by now, should be well aware of the rapid changes altering the dental playing field. The market-driven changes, such as corporatization of the industry and oversupply of new dental graduates, have been well highlighted in professional publications, and despite an increase in the frequency of dental caries, particularly in young children, after decades of decreasing incidence, the dental profession, unlike its medical counterpart, relies on the ability to treat just a handful of diseases.

June 16, 2016

Dental implants are usually needed when teeth are lost because of gum disease or injury to the soft tissues that support and protect the teeth. These same problems can affect the soft tissue that protects dental implants. These clinical soft-tissue issues can make it a challenge to place fixed dentures or crowns. A recent article in the Journal of Oral Implantology explains how a newer type of xenograft can help improve the existing soft-tissue support for existing dental implants.

May 25, 2016

The total edentulism is a serious handicap that in Italy still affects almost 25 percent of the population age 65 and older. The loss of teeth leads to a severe impairment of quality of life, not only with regard to the ability to chew, but also because of impact on social life and psychological health. A prosthesis for edentulous patients improves chewing efficiency and quality of life.

May 12, 2016

Designing toothpastes and toothbrushes is a time-consuming process involving the production and testing of numerous samples. Using a new type of simulation, various parameters such as bristle shape and abrasive particle size can be modified with just a click. This enables manufacturers to improve the quality of new dental care products and bring them to market more quickly.

May 8, 2016

Platform switching is a means of achieving better esthetics and more predictable function by using a healing abutment that is narrower than the width of the platform of a root-form endosseous implant. The technique promotes a more predictable regenerative healing at the neck of the inserted implant.

May 4, 2016

1. Choose one well-documented, scientifically supported implant system. Any dental implant system demonstrating ongoing research and design will achieve high success rates and be adequately equipped to deal with most clinical challenges. Surprisingly most successful implant systems are similarly designed, making the thought of owning different implant systems in the office redundant. Implant macro- and micro-topography may vary, but similar success rates are seen. Prosthetic connections and abutment designs appear very similar.

March 15, 2016

Orthodontic education accreditation for all undergraduate and postgraduate educational programs in the United States and Canada was initiated in the early 1970s. The creation of the Commission of Dental Accreditation occurred in the 1990s, operating under the auspices of the ADA, in order to standardize the accreditation process for all postgraduate orthodontic programs (American Dental Association, 2008).

March 6, 2016

Felines (cats) are by nature carnivores and, as such, their diet reflects that. It is accepted that diet affects health, and ability to eat (or lack thereof) can have negative effects on the diet, and thus, general health. Implants have become an option for replacement of lost canines in these animals.

March 4, 2016

Dental implants are placed either utilizing a one-stage approach (healing abutment placed at implant placement) or a two-stage approach (implant is covered by soft tissue at time of placement) and modification of the soft tissue to expose the implant fully may be required. When the prosthetic phase is initiated, soft tissue is either removed to uncover the implants or reshaped at gingival margin for better esthetics, which can be accomplished by several methods.

February 17, 2016

Dental Tribune interviewed Dr. Paresh B. Patel, one of the featured speakers at the ICOI Winter Implant Symposium, which took place Feb. 12-14 at the Trump National Doral in Miami. A clinical instructor at the Reconstructive Dentistry Institute, Patel has published numerous articles in leading dental journals, is a lecturer and clinical consultant on dental implants and prosthetics for various companies, and maintains private practices in Lenoir and Mooresville, N.C.

January 19, 2016

We all hear it. Have a superior product or service, and customers will automatically stream through the office door. If only it were so easy. The reality for most dentists is that new technology does not lead to a major increase in patients. Yes, there are often more referrals because of satisfied patients, but not the hoped-for volume increase. The good news is that relatively small investments in marketing can change this and lead to significant growth of the practice.

January 19, 2016

Variolink Esthetic (Ivoclar Vivadent), the light- and dual-curing luting composite, allows the dental professional to adhesively cement highly esthetic ceramic and composite restorations thanks to its flexible and well-structured Effect shade concept. Pre-polymerized excess material can be easily and efficiently removed.

January 14, 2016

Coronary heart disease patients with no teeth have nearly double the risk of death as those with all of their teeth, according to research recently published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. The study with more than 15,000 patients from 39 countries found that levels of tooth loss were linearly associated with increasing death rates.

January 13, 2016

Dr. John Hagen came from a family of blacksmiths where you practiced a certain trade. In those days, college was generally not the path, but for him, his motivation was to go to college. Having taken an aptitude test from the advice of a high school science teacher, John moved on into dental school, which set a different precedent for his future lineage.

January 13, 2016

One of the primary reasons I embraced CAD/CAM dentistry 20 years ago was the promise that the chairside digital workflow offered in exercising more control over every aspect of the restorative process. Even today, the idea of creating quality dental restorations in one visit for my patients is quite appealing.

January 5, 2016

The iSy Dental Implant System is a unique concept designed to optimize the implant treatment with digital dentistry while minimizing the complexities of the treatment workflows. Its name, iSy (pronounced, easy), is a play on the words “Intelligent System,” and it is the first system to allow you access to the three main treatment workflows: digital, conventional and flexible, all in a single package.

December 15, 2015

Fluoride or no fluoride, compact toothbrush or full size toothbrush, coronal polish first or polish last. The decisions necessary in the dental practice are numerous and many times are based upon personal choice. How and when does the dental professional decide whether to eliminate alcohol products from the practice or limit the recommendation of products that contain a high quantity of alcohol?

December 11, 2015

I once asked my good friend Dr. Yoshi Terauchi how many canals he shaped with a given nickel titanium rotary file before discarding it and bringing a new file into the procedure. He answered, “I use rotary files until they break, I remove the broken segment and then get a new file.” WHAT? I thought to myself as I looked at him like he had two heads.

November 22, 2015

Of the commercially available hard- and soft-tissue lasers, the Fotona Lightwalker dual laser wavelengths of Nd:YAG and Er:YAG have high efficacy and ability for almost unlimited pulse control, and the following procedures have been developed to take advantage of these attributes. Along with this increased level of performance comes significant patient comfort.

November 19, 2015

As a practicing endodontist and manufacturer of endodontic instrumentation systems, it is fascinating to me to observe the initial evaluation of greater tapered rotary NiTi instrumentation as a paradigm improvement over traditional manual techniques morph into a far more cautious view where more and more evidence documenting its deleterious effects on the dentin is becoming increasingly evident.

October 26, 2015

Dr. Luis Carrière obtained his dental degree from the University of Complutense in Madrid (UCM), in 1991. He then attended the University of Barcelona (UB) where he completed his orthodontic training and received his master of science in orthodontics in 1994. In 2006, he received his doctorate in orthodontics, cum laude, from the University of Barcelona.

October 20, 2015

Your staff members are essential to the smooth functioning of your practice, and you rely on them to keep things going. But according to a 2014 report by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), health-care businesses are likely to be victims of fraud, with yearly losses averaging $175,000 per practice. The same study also found that small businesses are disproportionately affected — and under protected — from fraud and employee theft.

October 13, 2015

Background of orthodontic education in early 1900s: During the 1940s-1950s, dentists seeking to specialize in orthodontics were required to work for several years with an established, board-certified orthodontist as a preceptor (Asbell, 1988; Wahl, 2006). In addition to learning to become clinically proficient, additional science courses were necessary, such as: growth and development, human anatomy, physiology, histology and biomechanics.

October 8, 2015

Summer comes early to Colonial Williamsburg. Poppies, our nation’s brilliant symbol of remembrance, are in full bloom by Memorial Day. I just love the town’s wigmaker’s shop, which also would have doubled as the town barber shop. It was fashionable for well-to-do young ladies to have their heads shaved at such shops prior to being fitted for a wig. By 1775, the year this living-history site is modeled on, the barber no longer extracted teeth.