Amazing Breakthroughs in the Understanding & Management of Dental Caries

Course Description

Few if any presentations are as immediately relevant or as practical for General Dentists. As General Dentists, dental caries management is our primary focus. We must become specialists, the experts, in the understanding and management of dental caries. Performing cosmetic dentistry or placing a crown in the mouth of a high risk caries patient without addressing risk factors is asking for failure. From a medical legal perspective we must be familiar with the new standard of care. From a dental perspective, we must be sure we are treating the disease not just the tooth, the whole patient not just the hole.
This presentation will focus on treating caries disease, not on the restoration of a tooth with a caries lesion. Dentists and auxiliary personnel will be shown a practical, easy to implement, protocol consistent with today's scientific paradigm. This requires that first one must become aware of the major advances in our understanding of the role of biofilm in general and dental plaque in particular. Next, an understanding of the detection, classification and assessment of lesions must be addressed. This is then followed up by integrating the concepts of diagnosis, risk assessment and prognosis. Attendees will also learn about remineralization by chemotherapeutic agents for the modern management of this disease. Preventative and therapeutic products such as fluorides, chlorhexidine rinse, Xylitol gum, NovaMin, MI paste, etc. are covered.

The educational objectives for the presentation include: