CDA Essentials 2017 • Volume 3 • Issue 5

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21 Volume 3 Issue 5 |
Issues and People
What do the next 10 years
hold for dentistry?
Exciting developments in research and technolog y are making it possible to re-imagine
how we will practise dentistry in the future. From patient risk assessment and disease
diagnosis to materials selection, transformative changes are on the near horizon. In a
series of interviews on Oasis Discussions , CDA reached out to
leaders in various disciplines to seek their insights on how their particular fields might be
transformed in the next 10 years.
thought leaders series
Dr. Rick Carvalho,
professor in the
faculty of dentistry,
University of British Columbia
Dr. Paul Edwards,
professor, department of oral
pathology, medicine and
radiology, Indiana University
school of dentistry
Dental Materials
Materials will be bioactive: “I see a shift away from inert materials toward materials that
have some sort of activity. For example, materials that release drugs, like antibacterial drugs
or anti-inflammatory drugs, to target localized and maybe systemic diseases as well. These
bioactive materials are already in place, but product development will take time.“
Care will be tailored to the patient: “Advances in genomics, proteomics, and
metabolomics are driving research toward personalized care. The idea is to develop a
chairside system where you can create a patient profile from saliva or blood, in terms of
biomarkers, proteomics or metabolomics. Biomarkers can identify the presence of disease.
Proteomics and metabolomics, by determining a patient’s risk of getting a disease, can
help in prevention.”
Listen to the full interview with Dr. Carvalho:
Oral and Maxillofacial Patholog y
The focus of general dentistry will expand: “The biggest change I’m hopeful for in
the practice of dentistry is a much larger focus on clinical oral pathology, oral medicine,
management of head and neck lesions, and other non-dental, non-periodontal aspects of
dental medicine. Dentists can really take ownership of these areas, and there isn’t a better
trained group to really care for these patients.”
Care will become more personalized: “With the decreasing costs of genome sequencing,
there are a number of international efforts to try and identify genetic variations that are
associated with disease. These studies look at single nucleotide polymorphisms and their
association with disease susceptibility, response to therapies and pharmakogenetics. As the
database increases, dentists can take advantage of this growing body of knowledge to tailor
our management of patients to what is going to be most effective for them.”
In vivo microscopy will improve diagnosis of oral lesions: “In oral pathology, I think we’re
going to see a move toward in vivo microscopy for assessing certain oral lesions.