After coming back from the fall meeting, I have been inspired by all the new technology that is available to us. This advancing technology is revolutionizing dentistry and the speed at which this is occurring is astounding. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore saw the future. His prediction, popularly known as Moore?s Law, states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every two years. This observation about silicon integration, made a reality by Intel, has fueled the worldwide technology revolution.
The dental industry will also benefit from this tremendous change in our advancing technology of computer power. Remembering what Dr. Ganz said, "it is not the scan but the plan," but you cannot build a plan without a scan, therefore imaging will be the key component to these new advancing technologies. Implant planning is just starting to utilize stereo-lithic models, software treatment simulations, and even computer guided surgeries. None of these things could be possible without computer power and of course, imaging.
Other dental specialties will most likely follow what implant planning has already begun. Soon there may be orthodontic computer models of the patient, this may be the virtual patient where the orthodontic treatment can be simulated on the computer, and the orthodontist can ask questions of the model like growth and outcome predictions. This may reduce treatment times, auto detect diseases, asymmetries, or abnormalities within the patient. Dr. Emmott made such predictions in his lecture and stated, "The future is coming, and it will be amazing.
All this and much more is being developed and tested. But the bottom line of all these advancing amazing technologies comes from one common ground, and that is high quality, low dose 3D imaging.
This may change the way people practice dentistry, it may be such a significant advancement in modern dental technology that we have to look closely at a quote from Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse, when he said "The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing."