Stureplan 6

01/10/2024

I am profoundly grateful for the heartfelt wishes you shared on my son’s sixteenth birthday. Your beautiful words added a special touch to this milestone, reminding us of the love and support you’ve offered since his very first day. I appreciate everything you expressed, even beyond words, as your kindness and presence have always enriched our lives. Thank you for being an integral part of our journey. I promise to reply to each of you personally; your messages truly mean the world to us!

21/11/2014

You know its Friday:
when you see signs like this from your patients!

16/11/2014

Salivary mucins play active role to fight cavities!

Salivary mucins, key components of mucus, actively protect the teeth from the cariogenic bacterium, Streptococcus mutans, The research suggests that bolstering native defenses might be a better way to fight dental caries than relying on exogenous materials, such as sealants and fluoride treatment.

S. mutans attaches to teeth using sticky polymers that it produces, eventually forming a biofilm, a protected surface-associated bacterial community that is encased in secreted material. As S. mutansgrows in the biofilm, it produces organic acids as metabolic byproducts that dissolve tooth enamel, which is the direct cause of cavities.
"Salivary mucins don't alter S. mutans' growth or lead to bacterial killing over 24 hours instead, they limit biofilm formation by keeping S. mutans suspended in the liquid medium. This is particularly significant for S. mutans because it only causes cavities when it is attached, or in a biofilm on the tooth's surface." The oral microbiome is better preserved when naturally occurring species aren't killed. The ideal situation is to simply attenuate bacterial virulence.

"Defects in mucin production have been linked to common diseases such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, and ulcerative colitis,". "There is increasing evidence that mucins aren't just part of the mucus for structure or physical protection, but that they play an active role in protecting the host from pathogens and maintaining a healthy
Streptococcus mutans is the primary cavity-causing bacteria in the oral cavity."
"It is generating a paradigm shift from the textbook view of mucus as a simple catchall filter for particles, towards the understanding that mucus is a sophisticated bioactive material with powerful abilities to manipulate microbial behavior."

12/11/2014

Don’t Be Numb to Local Anesthesia Risks

Because of their common occurrence and relative safety, local anesthetic injections are often overlooked as a professional liability risk. While not a significant source of professional liability claims, adverse events can occur during and in response to local anesthetic injections, sometimes with serious consequences.

The allegations seen most frequently in such claims are an improper injection technique, an improper choice of anesthetic, or an excessive dose caused the claimed injury. The alleged injuries range from temporary effects, such as fainting and partial paresthesia, to irreversible outcomes such as permanent anesthesia and death from anesthetic toxicity.

It is understandable that a common procedure with a relatively low incidence of reported claims may lead a dentist to become complacent about its risks. As drugs, they require a continued diligence regarding their use, risks, and management of adverse responses.

The adverse responses associated with local anesthetic agents vary greatly in their severity and impact on a patient’s life. Keep in mind that your ability to respond to an adverse event is just as important a risk management skill as your ability to prevent an adverse event from happening. Fortunately, the most common occurrences are also the least severe and among the most basic to manage.

Adverse Systemic Responses

There are many factors that affect a patient’s risk of an adverse systemic response to local anesthesia. They include aspects of the anesthetic, such as dose, concentration, and vasoconstrictor presence or absence. Patient characteristics such as regional anatomy, hepatic and renal health, current medications, and level of anxiety are critically important. Certainly, clinician-controlled factors make a difference, too, including the anesthetic agent selected, the thoroughness of the medical history review, the speed of injection, and the clinician’s technique.

Syncope. Many patients consider local anesthesia injections to be a stressful procedure. As a result, anxiety-induced events are the most common type of adverse systemic response. Frequent symptoms include palpitations, hyperventilation, nausea, vomiting, and a fainting feeling, often leading to syncope. Syncopal events typically resolve in a short period of time with no lasting effects.

Dentists should exercise preventive measures in managing anxious patients and those with a history of fainting. Suggest that patients loosen tight clothing like collars and neckties. Unbuttoning the cuffs of shirt sleeves may also promote patient comfort. Since syncope is due to a period of cerebral ischemia, it is advisable to position patients with their feet slightly higher than their brain (about a 10 to 15 degree angle), thus promoting adequate cerebral blood flow.

11/11/2014

Which is worse, toothache or labour pains?

In brief: Good question
Only someone who experiences both could say.
I do have many women that have told me they prefer the labor over the dentist. It would depend on your tolerance of pain and how you handle the anxiety associated. Toothaches can be very debilitating though if they are left too long.

09/11/2014

Now it's official. December 15 Straumann will honors the clinic a visit. Let's hope they have some sort of "Guide Straumann". Like Michelin Guides (French: Guide Michelin)!

08/11/2014

There aren't business like delighted Patients

08/11/2014

05/11/2014

Is continuing education of implant dentistry sending the wrong message?

Over the past few years, it appears that there has been increase in continuing education. Many of the courses are about implant dentistry and the conventional courses that form the basis of learning the skills of saving teeth have been fewer in number. Obviously, everybody wants to learn how to surgically place a dental implant.

It appears that some apparent “need” of patients has driven clinicians to subscribe to these weekend courses in surgery so they can respond to these patient “needs.” However, patients see their dentist regularly to save their teeth, not to have their teeth sacrificed for implant dentistry. Are we sending the wrong message here?

Originally all courses were provided by clinicians and researchers with a broad scientific support, justifying the concepts and designs for implant dentistry. Longitudinal and retrospective clinical data, scientifically based, were always presented to justify a design improvement, clinical protocol, or change in concepts like Submerged vs. Non Submerged Implants, for example. Lately, however, continuing education courses appear more sales oriented.

The whole marketing approach to implant dentistry has been to “oversimplify” the protocols so that anybody can place or restore a dental implant. Gone are the lectures showing long term data substantiating implant protocols and design. The presence of this oversimplification of implant dentistry and lack of academic control of scientific documentation has the dental field overrun with over glorified concepts like “All on 4”, “Immediate Placement and Loading With Teeth in a Day”, and “Flapless Surgery” — all used in marketing dental implants without any respect for the prior established scientific data. There is a need for long term clinical observations of dental protocols, materials, and surgical approaches. This provides key insight to diagnoses and treatment directions.

Is continuing education a facade for marketing? In the absence of consistent scientific protocols, are 95% success rates, as previously promised, seen regularly? If not, what is the problem here?

Once the courses are completed, most clinicians receive the golden label of approval, a dental certificate of completion that they can hang on their dental mantel at the clinic.They have been pre-programmed to now look at patients as potential implant patients. Their approach to dentistry has changed overnight.

In the past, they spent four to five years in dental school learning most of the skills to save teeth. These skills involve different forms of dentistry, not limited to periodontics, operative dentistry, or endodontics. They spent countless hours understanding how to negotiate root surfaces in debridement, root canal curvatures in endodontics and multiple techniques in operative dentistry to save teeth. But overnight, all that has changed. Why spend so much time saving teeth, when you can remove them and place a dental implant at half the time? Is this really better for the patient? Why burden the patient with multiple periodontal procedures to save teeth when the alternative is here?

This approach seems to be contagious in the thinking of clinicians today. Many are concerned that dentists are not promoting the right approach to saving the integrity of the natural dentition. Is this not a clear conflict of interest? What is their motivation? Are we enough to diagnose and prognose the ailing dentition? When does the ailing dentition become a failing dentition? When is it appropriate to choose implant dentistry over conventional, time-proven and predictable conventional dentistry?

Choose your lecturers carefully, expect more from these sources of information, and learn more from your time commitments to continuing education. The true “need” should be to go back to basics and learn how to save teeth first, so patients are able to keep the most natural dental implant of them all.

04/11/2014

"Can Google Glass be a productive product, or is it just another futuristic gadget?”

A cloud-based solution which consists of an ecosystem of modules that integrate all aspects of the dental practice.

Using the Google Glass voice recognition function, dentists can interact with the practice management system hands free. Thus, they are able to access patients’ dental records without leaving the chair and without having to wash their hands. This improves patient communication and reduces hygiene concerns significantly. In addition, data, such as billing or treatment information, can be sent directly from and to any dental practice or laboratory using voice commands.

03/11/2014

Is it safe to have an X-ray during pregnancy?

Yes — having an X-ray during pregnancy is generally considered safe. It's highly unlikely that a diagnostic X-ray during pregnancy will harm a developing baby.
Most X-ray exams — including those of the arms, legs, head, teeth or chest — won't expose your reproductive organs to radiation, and a leaded apron and collar can be worn to block any scattered radiation. The exception is abdominal X-rays, which expose your abdomen — and your baby — to radiation. High doses of radiation can cause changes in a baby's rapidly growing cells. In turn, it's possible that these changes could slightly increase a baby's risk of birth defects or certain cancers, such as leukemia, later in life. Remember, however, that the typical dose of radiation associated with a diagnostic X-ray — even one of the abdomen or pelvis — doesn't pose this risk.

Before having an X-ray, tell your health care provider if you are or might be pregnant.

If you had a diagnostic X-ray before you knew you were pregnant, remember that any potential risk is exceedingly remote. If you had radiation treatment for a medical condition, the risks might be more significant. Share any concerns about radiation exposure with your health care provider. He or she might consult a medical radiation physicist to calculate your baby's radiation exposure.