9 Technologies That Will Shape The Future Of Dentistry

One of the most common childhood fears is going to the dentist. Who would not relate? Sitting in a huge chair illuminated by blinding light, enduring lengthy seated sessions with someone looking and poking inside your mouth using edgy and frightening devices, producing sounds like the screams of tortured souls from hell. And finally, when the misery is over, that same someone tells you not to eat your favourite sweets and instructs you to brush your teeth regularly. 

We’ve all been through this as a kid and childhood memories stick with us, just recalling this might send a shiver down your spine. No one likes to go to the dentist although everyone knows how crucial oral health is and how strongly it is connected to our overall health. But an armada of new technologies from virtual reality through artificial intelligence (AI) to CRISPR will revolutionise dentistry and our whole attitude towards oral health in the future.

Just like in the case of other medical specialties, disruptive innovations will have a huge impact on how dentistry will be practiced and how patients will take care of themselves in the future. Can you imagine that you might get your 3D-printed prosthesis in an hour instead of 4-5 sessions at the dentist? How about having a teledentist consultation? Or being able to grow new teeth at the age of 80?

Let’s see how these can be the case in the future thanks to the following 9 technologies.

1. Artificial intelligence

Already, dentists employ software to get insights into clinical decision-making, but AI is changing the face of dentistry, just like it is in many other fields. For dentists, it’s transforming diagnosis, decision-making, and treatment planning. For patients, it promises more accurate care and better outcomes. This study summarises how AI is adding value to various segments of the field.

Operative dentistry: finding cavities earlier

Even with X-rays, dentists sometimes miss small cavities, especially in tricky spots like between teeth. AI can detect early-stage dental caries and vertical root fractures more accurately than traditional methods in a cost-effective way. Problems that get treated earlier, prevent the need for major work later – a huge win for all of us as patients. This is not science fiction, using neural networks can better detect dental decay (and periodontal disease) from radiographs.

Periodontics: protecting your gums

Gum disease (periodontitis) can be hard to spot in its early stages, but it’s a major cause of tooth loss. AI helps dentists catch it early, so treatment can be simpler and more effective. It’s like adding an expert gum specialist to the team.

Orthodontics: planning the perfect smile

Creating the ideal orthodontic treatment plan (braces and Co.) is time-consuming and takes lots of measurements and analysis. AI models help orthodontists create the best treatment plans, and predict how the result will look like. This means faster results and less guesswork.

AI in oral and maxillofacial pathology: early detection, targeted treatments

Oral cancers and other serious issues can lurk undetected with biopsies being the only way to diagnose them. AI is getting good at analysing scans and microscope slides. It can identify suspicious areas that need closer examination and can help distinguish between tumor types. This can lead to earlier cancer detection and more targeted treatment. Researchers in 2019 developed a machine learning method to accurately quantify immune cells in the vicinity of oral cancer cells. This gives better insights into the spread of and resistance to cancer; thereby helping in determining the chances of survival.

Prosthodontics: designing better restorations

Crowns, dentures, and other restorations have to be custom-made for a perfect fit – a time-consuming process. Various AI models can assist this process by generating perfect dental crowns and dentures through CAD integration and improving shade matching.

To think even more ahead: genomic data can offer a deeper understanding for personalised care. With AI tools having access to such information, they can instantly offer the best treatment options and probabilities of success.

2. Smart toothbrush

While AI helps dental professionals provide better treatments, smart toothbrushes enable all of us to take better care of our teeth. Our home will be filled with connected, smart devices in the future, so why would our bathroom be an exception? At first, it might feel a bit strange to let a sensor into one of your most intimate activities, tooth brushing, but it makes a lot easier to maintain oral hygiene and prevent plaque or cavities. 

The Kolibree smart electric toothbrush makes sure you are brushing your teeth the right way through its app and offers kids fun games to keep up the good habit of regularly cleaning their teeth. Philips’ Sonicare smart toothbrush comes packed with sensors in its handle. These provide real-time feedback via a companion app warning you if you are applying too much pressure, where you are brushing and even coach the user as to how to brush properly. And there are so many such devices on the market.

While having a personal coach to optimise your daily oral hygiene might sound enticing, not everyone is enthusiastic about the technology. Firstly, dental experts emphasise the need for proper brushing techniques, which these devices won’t improve upon. Rather, it’s a dental professional who can demonstrate the proper techniques at your next appointment. 

Additionally, by buying smart toothbrushes from companies like Procter & Gamble and Philips Oral Healthcare you agree to their privacy policies that enable them to share your data with third parties. Now that health data is the new oil, companies will want to profit off of these in as many ways as possible. So you might want to adopt a smart toothbrush from a company that gives you more control over your data or one that doesn’t share it with third parties at all.

3. Augmented Reality

You might be familiar with Augmented Reality (AR) through social media apps; it’s the same technology that Snapchat uses to superimpose filters on your face during your guilt trip selfie with a dog face filter. But AR also found a home in dentistry for both educational and clinical purposes.

Image Navigation’s DentSim Simulator pairs AR with a mannequin on which students can perform procedures while receiving immediate feedback as their movements are tracked. This helps them identify faster where they should improve and develop their skills in the process. It’s already in by 8,500 students in dental schools around the world.

In dental practice, the technology is more prevalent in reconstructive and aesthetic procedures in order to help patients know what they will look like after the treatment. SmartTek developed an AR app that uses a phone or tablet’s camera to overlay virtual depictions of the improved set of teeth prior to the procedure. This allows patients and dentists to configure features of their teeth such as height and spacing to their liking before they even enter the surgery room.

4. Virtual Reality in dentistry

Not to be confused with AR, Virtual Reality (VR) completely closes off the outside world with a dedicated headset and immerses the user in a virtual environment. By slipping such a headset on their head, students and aspiring dental surgeons can be transported to the OR from their couch; while patients can visualise a calming landscape while seated at the dreaded dentist’s chair to improve their experience.

Today, only a few students can peek over the shoulder of the surgeon during an operation and it is challenging to learn the tricks of the trade like that. With a virtual reality camera, surgeons can stream operations globally and allow medical students to actually be there in the OR using their VR goggles. Dentistry even outpaced other fields of medicine in adopting this method. Back in 2015, Nobel Biocare held the first dental surgery filmed through VR and allowed observers to virtually assist the whole procedure from the surgeon’s perspective. In comparison, the first VR-recorded surgery was performed at the Royal London Hospital in 2016. The technology can further be used to help dentists build on their empathy skills through simulations putting them in the shoes of their patients or in challenging situations. 

On the patient side, VR might be the solution to our dentist’s office anxiety. An experiment showed that VR can be used as an effective distraction tool in dentistry. Patients wore goggles which displayed calming natural scenes, and remembered the treatments more positively afterwards.

5. Teledentistry

If you are reluctant to go to the dentist, imagine how hard it is for children, patients with special needs or the elderly in nursing homes. Another issue is distance: people living in rural areas rarely get access to a dentist and hardly ever have the possibility of choice. This can change significantly with the spread of teledentistry. 

Teledentistry services offered by companies like The Teledenists and MouthWatch provide easier access to oral and dental care; are significantly cheaper for patients; shift towards cheaper prevention practices; and allow patients to consult with otherwise unavailable medical professionals. For instance, MouthWatch’s TeleDent service offers an all-in-one teledentistry platform allowing patients to capture images, send relevant information to a dentist remotely, and do a live consult. The dentist might start a video chat with the patient and the caregiver so that the medical professional can actually see and talk to the patient, build rapport, help connect them and bring them into the office (if necessary).

The American Dental Association issued a policy on teledentistry that offers guidance on the modalities that such services can follow. This sets the pace in making teledentistry a general practice.

6. Computer-assisted design and 3D-printing 

3D printing does not need any introduction considering the buzz it generated in healthcare a while ago with the technology’s potential to print medicines, prosthetics and even organ replicas. Its importance was also highlighted during the COVID-19 crisis to bypass supply chains to meet hospitals’ demands. As the technology is set to become an integral part of healthcare practice, it will also become incorporated into dental labs.

Computer-assisted design (CAD) and computer-assisted manufacture (CAM), including 3D-printing, are already revolutionising the sector; they are turning them into low-cost, more effective digital labs. Traditionally, when a patient needs a crown, a dentist must make a mould of the tooth and fashion a temporary crown, then wait for the dental laboratory to make a permanent one.

With CAD/CAM technology, the tooth is drilled to prepare it for the crown and a picture is taken with a computer. This image is then relayed to a machine that manufactures the crown right in the office. With a 3D printer doing the hard work, dental labs eliminate the bottleneck of manual modelling and let the business grow. Stratasys, Desktop Health, or FormLabs offer such high-tech solutions for dental labs.

3D printers are also able to produce orthodontic models, surgical guides, aligners, retainers and more dental equipment faster and more precisely; tasks that would take longer with traditional methods. This helps improve workflows, reducing error and the amount of labor needed, which ultimately endows the technology with time and cost-efficiency.

7. Intra-oral camera

One of the greatest inconveniences while being seated in the dentists’ chair is that sometimes, no matter how wide you open your mouth, the dentist still cannot see what they would like to see, even by using the trusty dental mirror. Such situations are not only uncomfortable for both the patient and the doctor, but also painful. However, the advent of intra-oral cameras can remedy this exact problem.

MouthWatch, Dürrdental and Carestream Dental are some of the many companies to have launched intra-oral cameras on the market. The cameras’ unique liquid lens technology works like the human eye to ensure effortless image capture to deliver clear, detailed images patients can really understand.

8. Regenerative dentistry

We’ve come to expect to have our teeth fall off with age or with damage and have them replaced by prostheses. However, regenerative dentistry challenges this preconceived idea with developments that can lead to self-healing teeth and biological therapy for damaged teeth. 

A Japanese startup, Toregem Biopharma will launch clinical trials in September of what is believed to be the first-ever treatment that can regrow teeth. The drug is designed to help patients missing some or all of their teeth from birth – a condition named congenital anodontia. However, the Kyoto University-affiliated startup hopes to eventually offer a solution to patients who lost their teeth later in life as well.

Previously, researchers from the University of Nottingham and Harvard University developed dental fillings that allow teeth to heal themselves. These fillings stimulate stem cells to promote the growth of dentin, or the main constituent of our teeth. This effectively enables patients to regrow teeth damaged through dental disease and potentially eliminate the need for root canals!

Discoveries from researchers at Karolinska Institutet can accelerate development in the field of regenerative medicine. They were able to map the differentiation pathways of the cells that make up human teeth. They also discovered new cell types and cell layers in teeth that can impact tooth sensitivity.

Isn’t it exciting to think that you might not need to have false teeth to replace your own when you are old, but you might grow new ones? The tooth fairy will be very excited for sure!

9. CRISPR

CRISPR is a ground-breaking genome editing method offered by Mother Nature herself, but researchers have discovered its immense potential only recently. As explored in our dedicated articles, it might become the ultimate weapon against cancer or, more controversially, help design babies in the future. And the field of dentistry will also benefit from the technology as well.