Dentistry Goes High Tech Article
WASHINGTON (AP) - Henry Rhodes put the pen-sized video camera into his mouth and watched a large picture of his back tooth, complete with hairline crack, flash onto a TV screen.
Dentistry's going super high-tech, with powerful cameras to teach patients about all the gunk in their mouths, computer software to show how your smile will look if you pay for cosmetic surgery, even a machine that can mold a customized pearly white crown in minutes - instead of the two weeks needed now.
This is the future of dentistry, declared Dr. Arun Nayyar of the Medical College of Georgia, who taught the technology at Sunday's American Dental Association meeting.
Until now, when a dentist shows a patient a crack or cavity that needs treatment, ''We give you a mirror, and you're saying uh-huh, and half the time you're being polite because you can't see it,'' said Nayyar. ''This technology informs patients. ... An informed patient is an easier patient to treat.''
That's what persuaded Dr. David Hochberg of Marietta, Ga., to buy an in-mouth camera this weekend.
''When the patient is able to see what the dentist could see, they'll floss,'' he predicted, watching as Rhodes, general manager of Dynamic Dental Systems, photographed his own teeth with the company's camera.
Hochberg found another plus for his practice: a computer program for patients who demand miracles from cosmetic dentistry that shows what their smile would look like after teeth whitening or gum surgery.
These gadgets cost from $6,100 for a new-generation wireless camera to the $76,000 crown maker. And as dentists crowded into classes to learn the technology and then into sales booths to buy it, ADA adviser Dr. Richard Price cautioned that the machines must prove unfailingly precise - and said some may merely add flash to old-fashioned dentistry.
''It won't make me a better dentist, but God what fun,'' said Price, of Newton Center, Mass.
He watched a voice-activated computer that can flash digitized records, including in-mouth photographs and X-rays, onto a TV screen at the patient's chair without the dentist ever pulling hands out of the person's mouth. The program records dentist-patient conversations, a new twist if the patient sues. Download to a disk, and patients can take along their records when they move.
Some of the technology is so new that the Food and Drug Administration hasn't yet approved sales. BioLase Technology's Millenium machine, for example, uses atomized water particles to drill cavities and blast stains off teeth.
BioLase scientist Ioana Rizoiu aimed the water blast at a brown-spotted tooth and seconds later it had a hole deep enough for a small filling. A faint burning smell hung in the air, but the tooth was cool to touch - and Rizoiu claimed ''hydrokinetic cutting'' is so gentle that Europeans now being treated seldom need anesthesia.
Other machines could quickly change today's dental practices. Take crowns. The dentist grinds down the old tooth, measures the opening, sends the measurements to a laboratory and attaches temporary, often uncomfortable, caps. Up to two weeks later, the patient returns for the crowns.
New computers can measure and sculpt ceramic to provide crowns in one visit - Patterson Dental Supply's Cerec machine promises the whole procedure can be done in under two hours.
Patterson representative Bill Gaestel photographed a model jaw and the computer measured the crown site. He put a tiny ceramic block into the automatic sculptor. Seven minutes later, the whirring stopped and a crown emerged. Dentists looking over Gaestel's shoulder pointed to a few rough patches that needed hand-sanding, but a little polish and the tooth was ready to be bonded into a mouth.
Companies have sold just 300 one-visit crown machines in the United States so far but call the market prime.
''It is an amazing piece of equipment,'' said dentist Price. ''But I'd have to make sure that having this doesn't change my mind about using metal'' crowns or doing tooth restorations by hand that take longer, but may better aid certain patients.
AP-NY-10-19-97 1434EDT |
