Dr Mitrani, to what extent does digital technology facilitate team communication in implant therapy?
I firmly believe that enhancing communication is possibly the most important aspect of digital technology in implant therapy. It allows us to gauge the vision of the treating team when it comes to laying out treatment objectives, as well as sequencing therapy in an intuitive, precise and linear fashion. This becomes magnified when treating full arches, as this therapy normally not only involves implant placement but often also requires bone reduction in order to ensure that adequate prosthetic space is provided during the surgery.

Progress usually comes at a price. Do you see a risk that dentists may no longer be able to perform analogue work steps in future owing to constant digital innovation?
Technology per se should not be considered as deterministic. The reality is that, when people talk about digital versus analogue workflows in dentistry, it often seems like they forget that the true essential workflow is neither analogue nor digital, but cognitive.

Conversely, in the book The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, Prof. Howard Gardner and Dr Katie Davis point out that there are two types of people when it comes to handling technology: immigrants and natives. So, in a nutshell, those clinicians who were taught the analogue way can move towards the digital world with greater ease than younger clinicians, who were trained to work digitally, can change to analogue methods. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that there is a potential risk, particularly for younger clinicians. Hence, there is a need for academic institutions to continue teaching established analogue workflows so that if and when the digital counterpart cannot be executed, they can predictably rely on the conventional well-proven alternative. This is why, at Spear Education, during our two-day seminar and workshop on treating terminal dentition we make sure to teach our students the nuances of both workflows.

You will also review the treatment planning service Straumann Smile in a Box. To what extent can this support dental practices in treating patients?
The Smile in a Box concept has numerous attributes that can enhance the patient’s treatment experience. It allows the treating team to review and discuss the multiple steps that the therapy involves in-depth. It also ensures that all the parts and pieces needed to carry out these procedures are carefully selected and ordered, including a CAD/CAM-generated provisional restoration. It therefore is a quite pragmatic addition to our interdisciplinary collection of resources.

Editorial note: The webinar, titled “Integrating guided surgery concept in clinical practice”, will be presented live on Wednesday, 9 December, at 7 p.m. EST. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions about the topic, as well as earn a continuing education credit by answering a questionnaire after the lecture. Registration on the Straumann Campus is free of charge.

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