Dental News - Dentist, patient share insights on being center stage for laser treatment

Robert Selleck, DTA

Tue. 3 December 2013

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NEW YORK, N.Y., USA: Charles Braga, DMD, having just completed his fourth live-dentistry demonstration at a major U.S. dental meeting, is quick to sum up what it takes to perform onstage in front of a large group of peers with a camera projecting his every move onto huge video screens: “I have a decent facility available — and I don’t panic easily.”

But what about the patient? What does it take to schedule your next dental appointment onstage in front of a crowd of 150-plus spectators? Logan McClain, 33, the Bronx resident who was in the chair for Braga on Tuesday in the Live Dentistry Arena during the Greater New York Dental Meeting, has this take on it: “I’m down for anything — especially something that improves my health.”

And that was the outcome Tuesday, with a glowing prognosis from Braga and a beaming McClain thanking Braga for saving his gums with the laser surgery being demonstrated.

“It’s a revolutionary laser-based definitive method of treating gum disease,” Braga said of the procedure he performed with the PerioLase MVP-7 produced by Millennium Dental Technologies, which sponsored the session. “It’s better than scaling and root planing and old-style resective surgery, which patients just don’t want anymore.”

That’s exactly what led McClain to the chair on center stage. After his dentists advised him that he needed surgery and mentioned laser treatment as an option if he wanted to avoid loss of gum tissue, McClain searched the Internet to learn more. “I was willing to pay for better gums,” McClain said.

His search for the best LANAP procedure and dentist led him to Philadelphia, where the price was a bit steeper than he was immediately prepared for. That dentist connected McClain with Millennium. The company is always looking for surgery candidates for its training program because hands-on training is required before a dentist can take possession of the laser. Patients are treated at no charge and monitored for a full year of follow-up.

McClain had his first two quadrants addressed in a training class 10 days before the live-dentistry session, with three dentists and the instructor working on him. That took about four hours. “This was a lot quicker,” McClain said of Braga’s work on the final two quadrants Tuesday. “It was amazing.”

“A good patient means everything,” Braga said, returning McClain’s praise. “You were phenomenal.”

Braga has been training dentists on Millennium’s Nd:YAG laser since 2004, after becoming the country’s second practitioner to embrace the technology in 2002, while FDA approval of the then-experimental procedure was still pending. As a former instructor with the international program at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, where Braga also earned his DMD, he was comfortable and proficient with the role of teacher and missed it.

Plus, he’s a huge believer in the benefits of the procedure. “It’s more comfortable to the patient,” Braga said. “It’s tissue-sparing, with no cutting out and throwing away, which leaves the long roots that nobody likes. It’s safe, effective and proven.”

Still, McClain said he was a bit anxious Monday night and didn’t get much sleep. But it wasn’t because he was worried. “It was just the prospect of being healthy and having people watch the progression of that,” McClain said. “I would do it again.”

Braga has performed the procedure thousands of times, and today, as part of a group practice in Raymond, N.H., he performs it almost exclusively. “LANAP requires the Nd:YAG laser,” Braga said, “so this is pretty much the only laser (the PerioLase MVP-7) for it. It’s very specifically designed to do this procedure. It’s quite unique. … (The procedure) has great healing results without the old-fashioned side effects of conventional therapy.”

McClain, a group-fitness instructor who has lived in the Manhattan area his entire life, would agree. “I talk to a lot of people throughout the week, and I’ll be recommending this — not the old-school style,” he said.

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