Using guided surgery, surgeons are able to create an exact, detailed plan for the surgery, including the best spots to make incisions, the optimal path to the targeted area, and even strategize in advance about critical structures that need to be avoided. It allows sugeons to view the human body in real-time 3D and is especially useful in dental implant procedures.

It is reasonable to expect that Orlando patients will soon have access to guided surgery technology for dental implants from a variety of providers.

In the past this type of research has been conducted by attaching sensors to people’s teeth, or embedding them into an artificial palate. But both of these approaches interfered with speech and ultimately undermined the test. This new test avoids any interference with the normal generation of speech.

At this point, the research is fairly basic — the scientists working on the project have only explored how basic sounds are generated. But they hope to be able to use it to create devices that can generate more realistic human voices using computers and to create better dentures for Orlando and Central Florida residents that would have less impact on the patient’s ability to speak normally.

• Read more at NewScienist
• Research paper: “Tongue pressure recording during speech using complete denture”

Other technologies besides dental implants that doctors felt were likely to see significant growth include joint repair/replacement devices (31%), prosthetic limbs (30%), vision correction devices (23%) and back/spline repair & replacement solutions (21%).

It is reasonable to expect that these changes will impact the way Orlando dental implants are conducted within the next couple of years as well.

• Read more at the ChangeWave blog

His team experimented with coating titanium implants with “Bonelike”, a synthentic material. X-rays before and after the implants showed bone growth around the implants and no bone loss in surrounding regions of the jaw.

• Read the article at Dentistry.co.uk

The unit is affectionately referred to by the company as the “Dental Wii” because like the popular video game system, it offers a unique touch technology that allows dentists and lab technicians to “fell” the on-screen image — and work naturally and directly with a computer-based system as they do when using traditional techniques.

• Read more about the SensAble Dental Lab System at SensAble
• Read a short article about the system at Dentistry.co.uk

A crucial part of the body’s acceptance of a new dental implant is the growth of bone on the titanium surface of the implant itself. That is, when a dental implant is surgically inserted, the healing process that takes place afterwards “fuses” the bone to the titanium pin, which keeps the pin from becoming loose or otherwise leading to implant failure.

Dentists and scientists have developed a number of approaches to improve the regenerative capacity of the bone adjacent to the implant. One strategy is to create surface conditions on the titanium implant itself which speed up bone growth, such a creating “roughness” on the sides of the implant using acid etching and sandblasting.

An alternative method that scientists are currently exploring involves using biological signals to attract bone cells to the surface of the implant using short sequences of amino acids. Another approach being considered is using “signalling molecules” (sometimes called “growth factors”) to accelerate cellular specialization, which has the potential to considerably increase the amount and strength of bone growth.

• Read more at Chemical Science

The process uses a specially extended dental implant — up to 55 mm instead ofthe usual 10mm or 15 mm for normal dental implants. And it can be screwed into the cheekbone instead of the jaw bone, which could be a boon for those who don’t have enough jaw bone to sustain regular implants.

Plus, the new implants can be installed without surgery — instead, the patient first undergoes a computer scan that makes it possible to guide the implant into the jaw non-invasively.

Tests of the new implant are presently underway and the new implants should be publically available within the next year.

• Article at DailyMail.com
• Youtube video of “teeth in an hour”

Traditionally, the only way to communicate the attributes of an old denture to the laboratory is through the useof stone cast study models. The denture technician can only look at the cast and evaluate the carry-over attributes visually.

In the Celara system, a complete blueprint can be created of the original denture using a non-distructive process — the results of which can be sent to the lab to obtain an exact copy of the original denture. 

The process minimizes the amount of time patients have to sit for new dentures, and it has been found to substantially improve patient comfort and satisfaction with their new dentures. For even better results, the Celara technique can be combined with mini-dental implants.

• Read more about the Celara process
• Dentovations, the company that makes Celara