John Flucke's Blog - Ramblings of Dentistry's Technology Evangelist
The life and times of the Chief Dental Editor of Dental Products Report magazine and dentistry's "Technology Evangelist". Follow my thoughts and travels as I practice, write, lecture, tinker, and experiment with technology and technology in dentistry.
Dental mills have come a long way since their invention. When I first go into doing CAD/CAM dentistry, it was the age of CEREC 2. That unit booted from a *floppy disk* and used a diamond coated wheel and a cylinder bur to create the restorations. Times have sure changed.
The Axsys 5x400 is a wonder of modern design. The unit can create practically anything you can imagine. The unit can use either blocks or pucks depending on the requirements of the restoration and ca mill almost any dental material available. That includes zirconia, lithium disilicate, PMMA, denture resin, and titanium. Basically, if you can imagine it in the mouth, you can create it with this mill.
We are using Exocad for designing and then milling through the HyperDent software that powers the mill. The results have been nothing shy of amazing. Multiple units can be milled by using a puck or if a block restoration is needed, the machine can mill 6 blocks (which is 6 individual restorations) simultaneously.
The mill can create crowns, bridges, inlays, onlays, temporaries, dentures veneers, implant abutments, and implant supported bars, just to name some of the restorations possible.
I have also been incredibly impressed with the support the company has provided. Anytime you engage in a new process, there is a learning curve involved, but the support team at Axsys has been amazingly patient and provided amazing amounts of information throughout our journey.
I think a common misperception in the industry is that mills are only used in labs. However, being able to create incredible results in-house is a tremendous benefit of having a 5 axis mill in a dental office. I truly feel this is a product category that benefits dental offices as well as dental labs.
If you are in the market for handpieces or you are looking to upgrade your current situation, here is some info from DentalEZ. They have announced a new Handpiece called the Aeras 400 Flex to their product line.
I "grew up" so to speak with Star handpieces. In school we used the then state of the art Star 430 and Star 430 SWL. Back in those days, having fiberoptic in the Handpiece was truly a really big deal and combining a fiber optic light with a swivel connection... well you couldn't get any more high tech than that.
My how times have changed. Here are all the benefits fo the Aeras 400 Flex:
DENTALEZ is excited to announce the newest superstar in our constellation of Star products! To answer our customer’s ongoing needs for power and flexibility, we’ve created a new handpiece in our Aeras line specifically to be compatible with KaVo’s MULTIFlex™ coupler, the Star Aeras 400 Flex.
Maximum power with all the benefits of Star Handpieces This new addition to the Star lineup offers dentists the maximum cutting power supported by MULTIFLEX, in a handpiece that is 30% lighter than it’s KaVo competitor*. And with added RFID Technology embedded, dentists will be equipped to track and monitor inventory and enhance safety compliance**.
Additional highlights of this latest offering include:
● Exceptional ease of navigation via smaller head size
● Extraordinary balance and in-hand stability
With Star standard features like multi-port water spray, cool-spectrum LED illumination, in-office turbine replacements, and LubeFree Technology, “the quality you’ve come to expect in Star products is built in,” says product manager Bora Kilicoglu. ”Like other Star products, the Aeras 400 flex handpieces are proudly made in the USA.”
DENTALEZ® is committed to providing state-of-the-art dental practice solutions for unlimited interconnectivity, choice and control. With unwavering top-level customer service and support, the Company has securely established itself as a trusted partner in dentistry. DENTALEZ has a proven history of providing tried-and-true dental products and equipment, and continues to manufacture a full line of technologically advanced front-to-back office solutions from well-known brands including Star, Ramvac, Forest™, NevinLabs™ and Columbia Dentoform® . Visit dentalez.com for more information.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) also known as Machine Learning can be used with images, and that is a blessing and a curse. In healthcare it's a great adjunct to diagnosis. There are several companies that look at x-rays and can indicate to the doctor areas the algorithm thinks need to be evaluated. I've been lucky enough to work with some dental AI systems and I think they are the future as a diagnostic aid.
However, just like programs can learn what tooth decay looks like on an image, there are companies out there selling programs that can easily and rapidly identify an individual in a photograph or even on a live CCTV camera on a city street. China is probably the world leader in tracking citizens. The cities on the Chinese mainland have cameras everywhere and their facial recognition programs know where you go every moment. That's scary.
Of course, that would never happen in a democracy right? Well, maybe U.S. citizens aren't being tracked *everywhere* they go by our government, but with our addiction to taking p photos and sharing them online, it's certainly easy to develop "patterns of life" about individuals. That means someone somewhere know that every Monday-Thursday you're in the gym from 6:00 am to 7:30. Or... that you were at a Black Lives Matter peaceful protest.
In most instances the AI algorithms are owned and run by the social media companies. When you sign up for FaceBook or Instagram or SnapChat, nobody (or hardly anyone) actually reads the TOS (Terms of Service) and you end up agreeing to let a company do things with your data. However, not too long ago a company named ClearView AI came up with a concept that isn't exactly ethical, but they did it anyway.
ClearView AI developed a program that scoured the web and grabbed every photo it could find. Taking data (including images) that a user didn't agree to give you, is called "scraping" and ClearView scraped a lot of images from the web. It used all of those images to train its AI engine, and that engine got pretty good at recognizing faces. Then ClearIf you View went to other businesses and law enforcement and offered them the ability to identify faces taken for surveillance video.
The good news is that now some researchers and developers are fighting back. I've just read an article from MIT Technology Review that highlights programs that can be used to make your images unreadable by the AI engines. Cool huh?
This is going to become a cat and mouse game just like security has become. Hackers find weaknesses, companies close them, and hackers then search and find more weaknesses.
Today, A-dec and KaVo, two of the most respected names in the dental industry, are proud to announce a new collaboration to deliver premier products and world-class service – Excellence Amplified.
With a shared purpose and combined 169 years of industry experience, the two companies will now collaborate to offer additional integration solutions aimed at enabling better clinical outcomes and patient experiences. KaVo’s legacy of premium performance and innovation combined with A-dec’s legendary reputation for quality and customer service makes this a powerful collaboration.
A-dec President, Marv Nelson, announced the collaboration to employees earlier this week:
“The dental industry is all about human connection, and the positive relationships we forge to work for the betterment of dentistry. A-dec’s commitment to this mission starts with our #1 core value, Concern for People: our employees that create superior customer solutions of the highest quality, and our valued partners that share our high standards for service and dedication to our mutual customers. Our new collaboration with KaVo represents our unwavering commitment to the betterment of dentistry worldwide.”
KaVo Vice President & General Manager, Ronald Linke, added about the collaboration:
“It’s a special opportunity when two industry leaders, each with a proven track record of excellence, can come together and collaborate with a mutually shared vision. We’ve devoted our business to providing superior, premium quality instruments, and treatment units, to dental professionals, since over 100 years. We continuously seek to improve our business and service to our customers. This collaboration, with an organization that demonstrates the same level of commitment to its customers, presents a clear opportunity for KaVo to support dental professionals in new, innovative ways.”
Additional details about this collaboration, including product and ordering availability, marketing collateral, and more will be shared with you in the coming weeks.
As always, your A-dec Territory Representatives and Customer Service team remain committed to taking your calls and advocating for your needs. If you have questions about this collaboration, please send them to Marketing@a-dec.com. We look forward to continuing to meet your needs in the clinical products and services space.
Frequently I get the opportunity to learn (and appreciate) backstory of a product or device. I love these types of stories. Often there a great stories behind products that we use everyday in our personal or professional lives, but we just never hear them. Today's post is one of those stories. The last time I checked, the most popular composite in the U.S. is 3M Filtek Supreme. It's a product that thousand of dentists reach for every day, but they've never heard anything about its inventor.
Today I would like you the learn the story of Sumita Mitra, the scientist behind 3M Filtek technology...
Munich, 4 May 2021 – The European Patent Office (EPO) announces that the Indian-American chemist Sumita Mitra has been nominated as a finalist in the “Non-EPO countries” category of the European Inventor Award 2021. Mitra was the first to apply nanotechnology to the production of dental materials, leading to the creation of a new composite to repair teeth which has many advantages over conventional materials.
Mitra’s material overcomes many of the limitations of previous dental composites, which were either too weak to be used on biting surfaces, or quickly lost their polish and became physically unattractive. In addition, her invention is more versatile than other composites, meaning it can be used in any area of the mouth, and simplifies the filling procedure for dentists. Commercialised as Filtek™ Supreme Universal Restorative since 2002 by 3M, the US multinational for whom Mitra worked for more than 30 years, the technology and the products developed from it are today used by dentists around the globe.
“Mitra’s invention takes what was an emerging technology at the time – nanotechnology – and applies it to a new sector to provide a solution for dentists and relief for patients,” says EPO president António Campinos, announcing the European Inventor Award 2021 finalists. “Patents have protected Mitra’s material and helped ensure that her invention remains commercially successful nearly 20 years after its launch.”
The winners of the 2021 edition of the EPO's annual innovation prize will be announced at a ceremony starting at 19:00 CEST on 17 June which has this year been reimagined as a digital event for a global audience.
Making a new nanomaterial
Until the late 1990s, dentists wishing to perform natural-looking tooth repairs relied on a combination of two materials: composite microfills, which were aesthetically-pleasing but too weak to be used in teeth towards the back of the mouth and biting surfaces; and stronger, but less attractive hybrid composites. A key problem was the size of the filler particles which are suspended in the resin to impart it with strength, colour, and opacity. Traditionally, these fillers consisted of dense, large particles, such as quartz or glass, milled down into finer particles – but as the resin gradually wore away, these particles begin to protrude from the material or were plucked from its surface, resulting in bumps and craters which scattered light. The result was a filling which quickly lost its reflectivity and polish.
It was while working in the oral care division of US multinational 3M that Sumita Mitra became aware of the limitations of existing composite materials. At the same time, nanotechnology was emerging as a field of research and Mitra decided to explore how these new developments could be applied to dentistry. She began working on nanotechnology-based solutions for a new dental material, driven by a desire to use her expertise in polymer chemistry and materials science to develop inventions that solve real-life problems for people.
Mitra’s idea was to replace composite fillers with nanoparticles – ultrafine particles measuring between 1 and 100 nanometres in diameter – which are smaller than the wavelength of visible light and do not therefore scatter it, resulting in a material which retains its shine. At first, Mitra and her team at 3M incorporated uniform nanoparticles measuring less than 20 nanometres in size (1 nm is a billionth of a metre) into resins, but although the materials they created were strong and attractive-looking, they were difficult to mould, making them unsuitable for dentistry.
She and the team therefore developed a technique for creating linked clusters of nanoparticles, which they called ‘nanoclusters’, combining these with single nanoparticle of varying diameters, resulting in a strong, durable and shiny material, with excellent handling properties. By adding tiny amounts of pigment, and altering the chemical composition of the nanoparticles, the team also created a range of different shades, which can be matched to individual patients’ teeth, and layered to create a more natural finish. “The use of nanotechnology gave me the opportunity of making a new material,” says Mitra. “It restores peoples smiles and improves the quality of their lives”.
Following the successful development process, Mitra worked closely with 3M’s patent attorneys to construct the patents to protect her ground-breaking work. Besides her contribution to the Filtek range, Mitra is named as inventor on 58 granted European patents for inventions that have resulted in various dental innovations including resin-modified glass ionomers and new adhesives which can be found in other 3M products. “The patent was essential for safeguarding the invention so that others could not infringe on the technology,” she says.
Lasting impact in dentistry innovation The material based on Mitra’s work, Filtek™ Supreme Universal Restorative, was launched by 3M in 2002 and, although several new generations have been developed since, the current line of products is still based on Mitra’s European patents. 3M regards the material as unique because it combines durability with aesthetic qualities not reached by competitors’ products which rely on micro- or nano-hybrid fillers instead.
Mitra’s invention has contributed to the company being named as one of the top three manufacturers for the global composite filing in the dental restoration market in 2019. The material‘s strength is its versatility according to her: “You have all the desired properties of a tooth filling in one material. That is why this technology has been used to make so many different types of tooth restorations around the world.”
Although Mitra retired from 3M in 2010, the enduring success of her invention continues with Filtek products used in one billion tooth restorations worldwide by dentists to date. Today she continues to contribute to research and development through her own consulting company. She also volunteers in her community and hopes to inspire young people to develop an interest in science.
Notes to the editor
About the inventor
Sumita Mitra is a partner at Mitra Chemical Consulting, LLC, a company she set up with her husband after leaving 3M in 2010, and which advises companies on new technology development, product design, commercialisation, mergers and acquisitions. She was named an American Chemical Society Hero of Chemistry in 2009, inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2018 and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021 for her work related to inventions in nanotechnology for use in dental materials. Other awards include a Hollenback Memorial Prize from the Academy of Operative Dentistry (2020); a Peyton-Skinner Award for Innovation in Dental Materials from the International Association of Dental Research (2012); and a Top 25 Women in Dentistry Award (2010). Mitra was elected to the 3M Carlton Society 1998 - the highest 3M award given for lifelong contribution to R&D.
Sumita Mitra is named on 58 European patents, four of which are related to her nomination for the European Inventor Award 2021: EP1225867, EP1227782, EP1229886 EP1771143.
Watch the video about Sumita Mitra and her invention (live as of May 4)
Download images of Sumita Mitra and her invention (live as of May 4)
About the European Inventor Award
The European Inventor Award is one of Europe's most prestigious innovation prizes. Launched by the EPO in 2006, it honours individual inventors and teams of inventors whose pioneering inventions provide answers to some of the biggest challenges of our times. The finalists and winners are selected by an independent jury consisting of international authorities from the fields of business, politics, science, academia and research who examine the proposals for their contribution towards technical progress, social development, economic prosperity and job creation in Europe. The Award is conferred in five categories (Industry, Research, SMEs, Non-EPO countries and Lifetime achievement). In addition, the public selects the winner of the Popular Prize from among the 15 finalists through online voting on the EPO website.
About the EPO
With 6 400 staff, the European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the largest public service institutions in Europe. Headquartered in Munich with offices in Berlin, Brussels, The Hague and Vienna, the EPO was founded with the aim of strengthening co-operation on patents in Europe. Through the EPO's centralised patent granting procedure, inventors are able to obtain high-quality patent protection in up to 44 countries, covering a market of some 700 million people. The EPO is also the world's leading authority in patent information and patent searching.
It's two words that none of us want to hear... and for those of us that see them on occasion... it's 2 words we hate to say.
I want to make a point today of explaining to non-medical readers today why almost all dentists screen for signs of the disease. Sometimes when I'm doing an oral cancer screening in my office someone will (usually a male) will say, "Why are you doing that? I don't chew."
The reason for screening is to catch things earlier and unfortunately oral cancer has changed in the past decade or so. It *used to be* a disease of older folks, especially men, who had a history of tobacco use as well as alcohol consumption. When a man was in the mid-forties or older with a tobacco and alcohol habit was when you normally expected to see the disease.
Human papilloma virus has changed all that. Now, the majority of cases are found in men *under forty*. HPV is the virus that causes most cervical cancers and the mouth and the female reproductive tract are made of similar type tissues. Unfortunately that means that a virus that thrives in the female reproductive tract can also thrive in men's oral cavities, especially in the tonsil area and the throat.
We have seen an incredible increase in the incidence of oral cancers in younger men and we need to educate the lay public about it. Many doctors are now recommending Guardasil for both sexes now. It is a vaccine against HPV-16 which is the virus that causes these cancers.
If your dentist is NOT performing an oral cancer screening at every cleaning, ask for one. This is a horrible disease that needs to be caught at its earliest stages to increase chances of survival.
I don't tend to follow many social media trends and I certainly do not follow the Kardashians... so I'm a bit surprised at me learning about this drug outside of the medical world.
Today's post is about a rumored appetite stimulant called Apetamin. Evidently this drug, which is illegal in the U.S. and many other countries is being endorsed by lots of "influencers" on Instagram and other types of social media.
This stuff is pretty dangerous, as almost any Google search will discover. And this begs the question, "Should a celebrity influencer recommend something that is dangerous?"
