Peter Sbaraglia: digital innovations to keep an eye out for

Technology touches every part of daily life. Cars provide WiFi; watches can track one’s health and 3D printing can create almost anything the imagination dreams up: figurines, working gadgets, the sky’s the limit. In fact on the subject of 3D printing, one other industry that’s beginning to reap the benefits of 3D printing technology is dentistry.

Over the past several years, the progress in 3D printing in relation to dental work has be positive, with the technology moving past just creating crowns and dentures (which is incredible in it’s own right) to being able to incorporate chemicals that fight bacteria that causes the tooth decay in the first place.

3D printing photo/ Kholoudabdolqader via wikimedia

Researchers in the Netherlands have developed a plastic that is infused with specific chemicals that will be used with 3D printers to create dental appliances with bacterial fighting components right in the dentist’s office. After a study was completed, it was found that the new material for dentures wiped out 99 per cent of decay-causing bacteria.

Peter Sbaraglia, an Ontario, Canada-based dentist, notes that this can mean monumental changes in dentistry.

“This is the kind of technology that can save people from serious problems in the long run,” explained Peter Sbaraglia. “While preventative measures should always be taken, this new material is one step in giving people dental health that they might not have had access to before.”

While the development of the plastic isn’t on the market (yet), dentists can still harness the power of 3D printing technology. For approximately three decades, dentists have been using a form of this technology to print teeth.  Now it can be done while a patient sits in the chair.  With breakthrough technology, printing now has been amped up by a factor of 100, giving patients a possible wait time of 6.5 minutes for a brand new tooth.

“Applications are emerging in the medical and dental fields, where the opportunity afforded by cheap customisation is allowing surgeons to replicate a patient’s body based on MRI and CT scans in order to practice difficult invasive procedures, and medical and dental implants which are fully customised to a particular individual can be generated,” IDTechEx, a market research organization on emerging technologies, explained.

With these technologies around the corner, dentists are looking forward to the future.

“Keeping an eye on these technologies is imperative,” added Peter Sbaraglia. “By embracing innovation, we can provide for our patients in the best way possible.”

Author: Leon Booth