Northridge Dentist (Advanced Technology) Precision Dentistry
Precision dentistry and medicine aim to address a patient’s specific needs. Precision medicine and dentistry entails treating each patient as unique based on a biomarker, genetic, epigenetic, psychosocial, and social-economic determinants. These factors distinguish a patient from other patients with similar clinical presentations. Precision dentistry helps to minimize errors in diagnosis, prevents negative side-effects, and improves dental treatments outcomes. Precision dentistry profoundly transforms the way dentists approach dental care. The right dental diagnosis leads to highly personalized treatment, and dentists can achieve a predictable outcome. Technological advancement in dentistry has played a major role in enhancing precision dentistry. For the best precision dental services, you can count on Northridge Dentist.
Understanding Precision Dentistry
Precision Dentistry is an emerging approach for dental treatment and prevention. This approach takes into consideration individual variability in environment, genes, and lifestyle. This treatment method allows medical experts to predict more accurately, which prevention and treatment strategies work best in certain people. Precision dentistry contrasts with the one-size-fits-all treatment approach. It’s different from the traditional treatment methods that involve developing treatment strategies for the average person without considering the differences between people.
The term precision dentistry is relatively new. However, the concept of precision medicine has been part of healthcare strategies for many years. For instance, if a person requires a blood transfusion, they can’t receive blood from any available blood donor. Instead, medics have to carry out all the necessary tests to ensure that a patient only receives blood from the rightful donor. Precision dentistry helps to reduce the risks of complications and side effects.
Precision Dentistry is a contemporary, data-driven, and multifaceted approach to oral health care. This approach considers patients’ characteristics to group similar patients’ into phenotypic groups. This grouping allows medical experts to acquire information to improve treatment planning and enhance patients’ response to treatment.
Dentists who practice precision dentistry move towards more specific treatments for their patients instead of applying average treatment to all patients. Precision dentistry places every patient in a subgroup. Every individual is the same other members in the subgroup concerning the dental condition of interest in every subgroup. Precision dentistry is a paradigm shift that calls for a new way of thinking concerning dental diagnosis.
When most people hear of precision medicine, dentistry is not the first thing that comes to mind. However, precision dentistry is important because dentistry is personal in its nature of delivering treatment. Precision dentistry aims at identifying the different levels of risk factors for developing certain dental problems.
Leading Benefits of Precision Dentistry
Precision dentistry is great having an impact on the way dentists treat patients and how health facilities channel their resources to benefit patients. This effective treatment approach enables dentists to select a treatment protocol or approach based on a patient’s molecular profiles. Some of the leading benefits of precision dentistry are:
Emphasis is on Prevention, Not Reaction
In precision medicine, experts can use molecular markers that reveal disease risk or its presence before the appearance of clinical symptoms and signs. Therefore, dentists can focus on prevention or early intervention rather than addressing dental conditions at their advanced stages. Patients with certain genetic compositions have a higher likelihood of developing certain dental conditions. Genetic tests can guide dentists to adopt certain preventive measures to prevent certain dental conditions from occurring.
Currently, there are numerous tests for a wide range of genes. These genetic tests enable dentists and other medical practitioners to identify a patient’s susceptibility to certain medical conditions. Genetic tests have a predictive capability meaning that dentists can be able to spot certain dental conditions before symptoms even appear.
A genetic diagnosis is advantageous because it eliminates the need for further invasive and costly diagnostic testing. If a patient learns that he or she is susceptible to certain conditions, he or she can take the necessary caution.
Reduction of Trial and Error Prescriptions
The majority of patients often do not benefit from the first time prescriptions they receive. This is because of the differences in genes in different patients, which impact drug-metabolizing enzymes, drug targets, and drug transporters. The use of molecular screening and gene testing in dentistry enable dentists to select the right treatment approach. Precision dentistry allows dentists to get it right the first time and helps prevent costly and frustrating trial-and-error prescriptions.
Molecular diagnostic tests will help to reveal patients that are likely to benefit from receiving certain prescriptions. Dentists are able to chart the best course of treatment for their patients. Making the right drug prescriptions helps reduce the adverse effects of drugs on patients, including allergic reactions and adverse side effects.
Improved Safety and Efficacy
The adoption of precision medicine in dentistry helps to reduce adverse drug reactions. Dentists are able to identify which products work best for their patients. Every year, the Federal Drug Association records a large number of adverse drug effects. A significant percentage of hospital admissions result from adverse drug reactions.
The FDA made a recent recommendation of the genotyping of patients before prescription of certain medications. Genotyping allows for more precise and specific dosing. Even if precision dentistry is still evolving, it has helped many patients avoid severe and possibly fatal adverse drug reactions.
Precision dentistry enables dentists to replace conventional drug dosage methods based on the weight and the age to a dosage. The medical practitioners determine the metabolism and efficacy of the drug in the body before making a recommendation.
Improved Adherence to Treatment
Precision dentistry enhances patients’ compliance with treatment, and this helps to minimize overall health care costs and reduces adverse health effects. Patients are more likely to adhere or comply with their dental treatment if personalized therapies present fewer side effects and prove to be more effective.
Understanding the genetic predisposition for certain dental conditions gives patients a powerful incentive to manage the condition and make the necessary adjustments. After a genetic diagnosis, patients show more adherence to treatment than patients who have not undergone genetic testing.
Precision dentistry helps to provide knowledge and insight on every patient’s genetic information. This allows individuals to make the right adjustments at an early age to prevent the disease’s development. If medical practitioners understand a patient’s susceptibility to a certain disease, they will be careful in rendering treatments and monitoring the patient’s progress. This strategy enables medics to capitalize on therapeutic benefits.
The Application of Precision Medicine in Dentistry
Dentistry is a diverse field that could greatly benefit from precision medicine. Some of the ways of applying for precision medicine in dentistry are:
Periodontal Care and Treatment
Certain patients are more susceptible to periodontal disease than others. Integrated precision medicine into preventive care for periodontitis enables dentists to efficiently allocate both resources and time to the patients with a higher risk of developing periodontal disease. There is a proven association or relationship between systematic and oral disease, commonly known as period-systematic linkage. Dentists have shifted the focus on periodontal disease’s etiology to host –bacterial interactions rather than bacterial plaque. More emphasis is on examining the impact of inflammation on host tissues.
In the past, dentists considered a patient’s history and conventional clinical assessments while diagnosing periodontal disease. After establishing that certain patients were at risk of periodontal disease, dentists provided a similar interceptive and preventive care form. This approach led to inadequate treatment for patients with a greater risk of developing periodontal disease and led to undertreatment of patients with a lower risk of developing the disease.
Generalizing the treatment for periodontitis resulted in unjustifiable costs of treatment in different parts of the world. As scientists continue researching periodontitis and the risk factors, dentists will customize the treatment provided to patients with periodontitis or patients with a high risk of periodontitis. The adoption of precision medicine in dentistry and specifically in periodontology has developed beyond theory. Currently, precision dentistry is the new way for dentists to provide oral care in their day-to-day dental practices.
Periodontitis is a form of polymicrobial infection. The clinical variability or differences in periodontitis is due to variation in genetic factors. Genes have an impact on host-bacterial interactions within the periodontal tissues. Therefore, genetic differences play a major role in the pathogenesis of periodontitis.
Dental Caries
Dental caries is one of the most prevalent public health issues across the world. Dental caries affects a significant percentage of adults and school-going children in the United States. Dental caries is the leading cause of tooth loss in the world. Persistent dental caries and periodontitis eventually result in tooth loss. Tooth loss could affect your quality of life in many ways. The presence of bacteria in biofilms is the leading cause of dental caries. These bacteria convert sugars into acids, leading to the dentin (tooth enamel).
Both host and environmental factors can influence dental caries. Environmental factors that could increase the risk of dental caries include the usage of fluoride and dietary habits. Host factors that could contribute to the formation of dental caries include enamel structure, salivary composition, immune responses, and taste preferences. Immune responses are genetically determined and often vary among people.
In some instances, the susceptibility to dental carries is genetically determined. Numerous loci and genomic factors could influence the formation of dental caries. These factors include mutations and gene defects. Early detection of certain genes is not just beneficial to the patient but also to the dentist. By understanding the genetic composition of their patients, dentists are able to provide better treatment. Precision dentistry results in better diagnosis and prognosis of dental caries.
Treatment and Management of Oral Cancer
One of the typical malignant lesion of the head or neck is oral cancer. Several molecular inequities are responsible for the development of oral cancer. Medical experts still require to undertake intense research to understand the mechanisms involved in oral cancer development. The survival rate of patients with oral cancer is highly dependent on early detection. Early detection of oral cancer is only possible through vigorous and persistent screening techniques. Early detection of oral cancer is only possible through biomarker-based methods. Precision dentistry has led to better treatment outcomes for oral cancer and an enhanced survival rate.
Novel paths in biomarker detection are coming up due to the developments in omic tools. These tools include proteomics, lipidomics, genomics, metabolomics, and epigenomics. Biomarker detection enhances the early detection of oral cancer. Experts can determine and discriminate the behavior of oral cancer in affected patients. This helps to offer personalized therapies to the patients. The body generates specific antibodies as a response to cancer-specific antigens. The presence of these antibodies can act as early detection of oral cancer.
Once dentists can detect and establish cancer’s nature at an early stage, they can recommend an effective strategy to manage the disease. Medical experts can come up with an option or a combination of several options designed for each patient. Dentists can design treatment procedures for patients based on cancer cells’ sensitivity in their bodies instead of relying on one treatment protocol for all oral cancer patients.
Offering Precision Orthodontics Treatment
Genetic has a proven prominence in the field of orthodontics. Knowing the genetics related to orthodontics enables dentists to understand the normal variations between individuals and also helps to prevent malocclusion to some extent. Environmental factors and genetics have an effect on the etiology of malocclusion.
Through genomic-associated research, dentists have been able to come up with an innovative mode of orthodontics. Through personalized orthodontics, dentists can utilize clinical data and genomic evidence to determine an individual’s likelihood to develop malocclusion. By being proactive, dentists can implement a treatment plan in a precise manner.
Advanced Technology in Precision Dentistry
The use of advanced technology has helped to push boundaries regarding what is possible in oral health. The focus is on timely prediction and prevention of dental issues and not just repair. Some of the advanced dental technology that comes in handy in precision dentistry include:
Advanced and Smarter Dental Chairs
Unlike the conventional dental chairs, dental chairs used in precision dentistry does not rely on hydraulics. The smarter chairs are controlled by digital technology. The advanced chairs can generate a wide range of quantitative data. The chairs can recognize and track the movement of equipment used. Smart dental chairs can collect data and information on blood oxygen levels and heart rate. Therefore, dentists can monitor a patient’s stress levels in real-time. Some chairs even have the capability of acting as stand-alone laboratories that can study how different people respond to treatment.
Radio Frequency Identification
Medical settings like dentistry recently adopted radio frequency identification (RFID). Initially, the RFID technology was used to track items in retail shops. Attaching tags to dental instruments makes it possible to capture all the details in a dental clinic without interrupting the interactions between dentists and patients. With time, it will be possible to attach tags on wearable IDs.
Instant data collection technology makes it easy to monitor all dental clinic activities to improve the services provided to patients. Data collection tags can monitor how long patients take in the waiting room and the frequency of equipment sterilization. The objective of collecting information is to provide better services for patients. By collecting information, researchers are able to enhance improved health outcomes and to bring innovations in the dental field.
Digital Dentistry Especially in Making Dental Restorations
Advancement of technology in dentistry has made it possible to have computer-aided design and manufacturing of dental restorations. This technology applies to the design and manufacturing of dental technology like bridges, crowns, and dentures. New technology has replaced the conventional methods of making dental impressions. Experts are no longer relying on casts and impressions that could be uncomfortable for patients. Advanced technology in making dental restorations include digital scanning of the mouth.
Use of Intelligent Machines
The use of intelligent machines in precision dentistry is enhancing data-driven dental care. Dentists are able to consider numerous parameters when planning treatment for their patients. Research and pooling of information from patients greatly enhance precision medicine in dentistry. Technology and collection of data have great potential for improving dental care.
3D Dental Scanners
Advanced 3D scanners provide the best alternative to conventional dental impressions. Dentists can use a hand-held wand that allows them to scan the specific interest and generate a 3D model. Patients do not have to ensure the unpleasant taste of the impression material. Patients do not have to bear with the excess salivation while the expression is taken.
3D scanning also helps to reduce the anxiety that comes with gagging. Scans come in handy in many areas of dentistry, including the fabrication of dental crowns, veneers, night guards, and other crucial dental appliances. The scanner goes to the extent of measuring the shade of a patient’s teeth to determine the perfect dental restoration.
When dentists create an impression that is 100 percent digital, they can be able to transmit the impression to remote dental laboratories securely and electronically. With the electronic impressions, the dental laboratories are able to come up with dental restorations with the right specifications. With enhanced accuracy and precision, patients spend less time in a dental clinic and enjoy a great fit of dental appliances.
High-end Microscopes
Dentists are able to enhance the precision of dental care by using high-end microscopes. Dentistry is a form of micro-surgery. Therefore, the success of dental procedures is highly dependent on how well a dentist is able to see the smallest details that are not easy to see without advanced equipment. By using a high power microscope, dentists are able to perform root canal therapy effectively and to carry our tissue grafts. It’s hard for dentists to achieve a high level of dental care with the naked eye. A microscope helps to direct a beam of light to an exact place and minimize the glare for the patient.
The Future of Precision Dentistry
Great or enhanced dental care has two main components. These components are the dentist’s expertise and advanced technology. In the past decade, significant advancements have resulted from the advancement of dental technology. However, despite the development of precision dentistry, not all dental offices are equipped with the necessary dental equipment. Therefore, whenever you are choosing a dental clinic, you should ensure that you go for a clinic that has the necessary technology to make an accurate diagnosis and offer precise treatments.
Precision dentistry involves using advanced technology like intraoral cameras, electric handpieces, high-powered microscopes, and other advanced dental technology. The use of advanced technology in dentistry has resulted in:
- Preventive care
- Greater precision
- Gentler, comprehensive, and complete dental care
The more details a dentist has regarding a patient, the more advanced the dental care that he or she is able to provide. When dentists are equipped with the right precision dentistry tools, they are able to spot problems before they even begin. The advanced technology in advanced dentistry makes it possible for dentists to capture all details in patients’ gums and teeth.
Advanced dental technology allows for greater precision while providing dental services. This level of precision may not be possible when using the naked eye. Precision dental technology provides dentists with information that would otherwise not be available when using the naked eye. By understanding all the information regarding a patient, dentists are able to come up with the best treatment plan for the patients.
With the right technology, dentists are able to provide complete, yet gentler care even when treating areas deep in the patients’ mouths. The right technology not only ensures that patients receive the best care but also provides patients with greater comfort while undergoing treatment. Advanced microscopes mean less glare and less discomfort for patients. In addition, advanced electric handpieces mean less noise and vibrations while providing treatment to patients. For patients who find it stressful to undergo dental treatment, precision dentistry makes the process much easier for them.
Find a Northridge Dentist Near Me
Are you in need of precision dental services, Northridge Dentist is the place for you! We rely on the most advanced dental technology to ensure that we offer the best dental services to our patients. We understand in offering personalized dental care instead of adopting the one-fits-all treatment approach. Contact us at 818-875-0216 and speak to one of our dentists.