Proposal for Introducing a Digital Aesthetic Dentistry Course in Undergraduate Program: Contents and Ways of Administration

Background: Nowadays, digital dentistry is a fundamental skill that dentists need to acquire at this time. The digital workflow has gained acceptance and is widely used in most disciplines of dentistry. For this reason, it might be advisable to include this content in the undergraduate curriculum. The aim of this work was to create a course in digital aesthetic dentistry and evaluate its effectiveness. Methods: Dental students at the University of Verona (from third to sixth year) participated in a 2-h course on photography, digital aesthetic analysis, and digitally planned rehabilitations. Students were randomly divided into two groups, the first group attending the course with video tutorials and the second group attending the traditional class with slides. The students’ ability to perform digital aesthetic analysis and rehabilitation was tested. In addition, a questionnaire was completed to determine student satisfaction with the course and method of delivery. Statistical analysis was performed. Results: The course was highly appreciated, especially by the students who received the video tutorials. Good results were obtained in the performance of digital analysis and rehabilitation, which were better in the first group. Conclusions: Digital aesthetic dentistry was a success in terms of newly acquired skills. From this point of view, the proposal of a course on this subject in the undergraduate curriculum deserves a close evaluation. The video tutorial method seems to be a good way to teach operative digital procedure

Traditional, 2D and 3D Workflows: What Is Better for Aesthetic Rehabilitation of Superior Anterior Teeth?

This study aimed to compare conventional, digital 2D and digital 3D workflows as possible aesthetic rehabilitation processes for the maxillary anterior area using “open-source” software. For the conventional workflow, a diagnostic wax-up was produced by a dental technician. For the 2D digital workflow, Keynote software (version 11.1) was used to perform digital aesthetic analysis and smile planning. Measurements were taken and used by the technician to obtain a dental wax-up. For the 3D session, a plaster model was scanned and used to perform 3D analysis and the guide for the mock-up was digitally printed. Symmetry and aesthetic parameters were assessed for each mock-up, and the opinion of dental professionals and laypeople about the aesthetic outcome of three mockups was assessed by an anonymous questionnaire. The 2D mock-up received the highest score, and this mock-up was found to be the most symmetrical, even though it had the longest operating times. There was a statistically significant difference (p = 0.000) between the scores given to this picture: experts in the dental field gave lower scores compared with non-professionals. Digital planning of aesthetic rehabilitation represents a technologically innovative procedure in dental practice, making it possible to achieve excellent aesthetic results, even when using open-source software

Telediagnosis of dental caries: Possible or impossible? A pilot cross‐sectional study

Abstract Objectives The aims of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of teledentistry (based on a home intraoral imaging protocol) in detecting dental caries and to assess the accuracy of this method compared to clinical examination. Methods Forty‐three patients were recruited for the study. Using a protocol for taking intraoral photographs at home with a smartphone proposed by the Dental School of Verona, a remote diagnosis of dental caries (TD) was performed by an experienced dentist. The same caries sites were also assessed by clinical diagnosis (CD) by a second experienced dentist. Ten photos were taken at home in five different perspectives, with and without flash, and emailed to one of the authors. The best five photos were selected for telediagnosis. The International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS II) score was used for caries diagnosis. Statistical tests were performed: Sensitivity and specificity of TD, the positive and negative predictive value of TD (PPV–NPV), and Spearman correlation to evaluate the relationship between the scores of TD and CD. Results A total of 430 photographs were submitted; TD was performed on 215 photographs and 43 patients were visited. A total of 1201 teeth were analyzed. The sensitivity of TD was 74.0, the specificity was 99.1, the PPV of TD was 91.7, and the NPV was 96.4. The Spearman correlation was 0.816, showing a very strong correlation between the values obtained with TD and CD. Conclusions The study showed good potential for TD, which proved to be a feasible method to combine with routine caries diagnosis in daily preventive dentistry practice

Performance of Fujirebio Espline SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test for identifying potentially infectious individuals

Background. A possible approach to overcome the limitation of SARS-CoV-2 tests availability is the usage of rapid diagnostic tests. In this study, we focused on the potential effectiveness of a rapid SARS-CoV-2 antigen assay in specifically detecting patients with high nasopharyngeal viral load. Methods. Fujirebio Espline SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test was used for analyzing nasopharyngeal samples collected from a series of consecutive patients who were positive by molecular testing at the Pederzoli Hospital (Peschiera del Garda, Verona, Italy) between 5 and 19 April, 2021. Molecular testing was carried out with Altona Diagnostics RealStar\uae SARSCoV-2 RT-PCR Kit, detecting SASR-CoV-2 S and E genes. Results. The final study population consisted of 174 patients (mean age, 43\ub119 years; 80 women, 46%). A total number of 47/174 samples tested positive with Fujirebio Espline SARS-CoV-2, equating to 27% positive percent agreement (95% CI, 21-34%). The area under the curve of Fujirebio Espline SARS-CoV-2 for identifying samples with higher risk of infectivity was 0.89 (95% CI, 0.83 to 0.94; p<0.001), with 0.92 accuracy (95% CI, 0.87 to 0.96), 0.78 sensitivity (95% CI, 0.65 to 0.88) and 0.99 specificity (95% CI, 0.95 to 1.00). The mean cycle threshold value of the 13 false negative samples was 27.6 (range, 24.6-29.2) for S gene and 28.3 (range, 25.9-29.4) for E gene, respectively. Conclusion. Fujirebio Espline SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen test displays excellent specificity for identifying potentially infectious patients, though subjects testing negative may still retain low infective potential