The Dental Industry Moving to Digital by Leaps and Bounds

With the introduction of new products offering Oral Scanners (Digital Impressions), the race for a "plaster-free" Digital Dental Platform has moved from the future to... now.

Components moving to be totally digital in the Dental Industry:

- Appointments, Accounting, etc. (already a few years totally computerized)

- CT / X-ray (already distributed mainly via CD from the CT Lab - or - local X-ray digital equipment instead of film)

- Volumetric (3D) Visualizations (already distributed from the CT Labs)

- 3D Implant Planning and Surgery Stents (SimPlant, NobelGuide, iDent, ILS, OsseoView, etc. - With SimPlant as number one in all reviews complimented with the Navigator System from BIOMET3i)

- Digital Impressions and Scanning (3M COS, iTero, D4DTech, etc. - No more trays and putty impressions - Samples)

- Digital Restorations Design (CAD - Nobel, Degudent, D4D, BIOMET3i, etc.)

- Computerized Aided Manufacturing (CAM - Models, crowns, bridges, stents, etc. - By stereolithography, sintering, milling, etc. - Nobel, Degudent, BIOMET3i, etc.)

A Real Revolution?

I often hear these questions:
- Is this a real Revolution all the issues around CT Guidance?
- Aren't you exagerating a little bit in order to promote just a new model of dental kits?

Let's see. This will happen to you the moment you will start using 3D Guidance Technologies (as SimPlant, The Navigator System, other 3D technologies):

- Use of your PC not just for emails and browsing the Internet (but a "real" use for your computer power).
- Detailed planning of all dental procedures before the treatment (press here for the advantages).
- Communication between surgeon, perio, prosthetic, lab, etc. experts via electronic media.
- The main medical-legal question will now be: Did you do everything possible to foresee and avoid possible problems? (as CT; planning using a dental simulation software, etc.).
- Sending plaster models via the Internet as 3D files.
- Dental planning software communicating directly with CAD/CAM equipment in the dental lab.
- 3D scanning claster models, bite impressions or directly 3D scanning the patient mouth (press here for samples).
- 3D "printing" or direct fabrication of models, stents, restorations, prosthesis, bars, etc. (press here for samples).
- Professional lectures explaining the procedures using 3D visuals (no more boring presentations).
- Explaining the possibilities to the patients in front of a PC display.

OK, now you see. We are talking about a Real Revolution in Dental Therapy, a whole new platform putting together until now individual technical advances; very similar to what happened to engineers and architects with CAD/CAM (Computer Aided Development / Computer Aided Manufacturing) a few years ago.