Monthly Archives: May 2024

Dental hygiene is important — as is taking pride in your “pearly whites.”

But keeping your teeth bright and white can be a challenge, with various factors causing discoloration.

Dr. Ronald Santana, head of science and development at Oral Biolife in Pennsylvania, noted that tooth discoloration refers to the “staining or darkening of teeth” from internal or external factors.

“Extrinsic discoloration is caused by color changes of the tooth enamel by external factors such as smoking, foods or beverages, including coffee, tea and red wine,” he said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“Veneer techs” have gone viral on social media after a self-proclaimed tech confused users by shared his certificate of completion, and a separate TikTok user shared a horror story of her veneers falling out after two days, but dentists warn these techs are performing dental work illegally, and they put patients at risk for serious health issues down the line.

KEY FACTS

Veneer techs are people who illegally place veneers on patients after completing a two-day training course that typically cost around $2,000 to $3,000, after which these tech receive certificates of completion that do not certify them to perform dental work, Jandra Korb, dental director of healthcare company DentaQuest, told Forbes.

Licensed dentists have National Provider Identifiers they use at licensed dental supply stores, where they’re able to buy products and instruments, but some veneer techs use nail supplies like acrylic for their procedures, while others buy kits off sites like Amazon and Temu—which don’t check NPIs—Ashley Brede Ciapciak, dentist at Brede Ciapciak Dental, told Forbes.

Dentists are the only people who are legally allowed to perform veneer work, so veneer techs are “playing a risky game with patients’ health” since they may lack the proper knowledge on sterilization and dental health that formally trained dentists have, Whitney White, a dentist at Aspen Dental in Nevada, told Forbes.

Ciapciak warned these illegal techs can be criminally charged with practicing medicine without a license, which is a felony in most states, and patients can also sue them for assault and battery if their dental work goes wrong.

A Las Vegas woman who ran an illegal company called the Veneer Experts was charged with felony counts of illegal practice of dentistry earlier this year after a patient’s teeth fell out, and the patient filed a complaint with the state.

Patients who seek out veneer techs often do so because they’re cheaper than traditional dentists—who may charge between $800 and $1,950 per tooth—but Ciapciak recommends going to a dental school to get this work done, since they’re “one-third to one-fourth of the cost of a private practice,” but still follow proper procedures with sterile instruments.

The field of dentistry is lagging on adopting evidence-based care and, as such, is rife with overdiagnoses and overtreatments that may align more with the economic pressures of keeping a dental practice afloat than what care patients actually need. At least, that’s according to a trio of health and dental researchers from Brazil and the United Kingdom, led by epidemiologist and dentist Paulo Nadanovsky, of the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro.

In a viewpoint published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, the researchers point out that many common—nearly unquestioned—practices in dentistry aren’t backed up by solid data. That includes the typical recommendation that everyone should get a dental check-up every six months. The researchers note that two large clinical trials failed to find a benefit of six-month check-ups compared with longer intervals that were up to two years.

AI analysis of CBCT scans leverages advanced machine learning techniques to extract meaningful information from medical images, in as quick as 10 seconds for 2D images, and four to six minutes for CBCT scans.

It detects over 65 conditions including periapical lesions, periodontal bone loss, caries decay, missing teeth, impacted teeth, and endodontic treatment failures, with an impressive periapical lesion detection success rate of 90%. Further advancements are still required for the detection of oral and maxillofacial fractures, dental trauma and tooth development disorders.

The AI software automatically produces a patented, panoramic reformation of the CBCT. The intuitive interface aids clinicians in navigating through the entire scan, pinpointing previously treated teeth, and identifying newly discovered pathologies. After the clinician assesses the AI’s suggestions, they can select to accept or reject them, and supplement with additional comments and images if desired.

The AI then generates the CBCT report with a diagrammatical review of its findings in a simple, comprehensive manner. This can then efficiently be printed in office or emailed as a PDF to the patient or referring clinician.