Post-maxillectomy patients often face significant challenges related to chewing, speech, facial symmetry, and overall quality of life due to the loss of facial structures. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the functional and esthetic outcomes of zygomatic implant-supported prostheses in 30 post-maxillectomy patients. Significant improvements were observed in chewing efficiency, speech intelligibility, and facial symmetry, with a high implant survival rate of 96.7%. The prosthetic rehabilitation also enhanced patient satisfaction, as evidenced by improved quality of life (QoL) scores. Thus, the gap in understanding the functional and esthetic outcomes of zygomatic implant-supported prostheses in post-maxillectomy patients, providing evidence of their effectiveness in improving chewing, speech, and facial symmetry while demonstrating high implant survival and patient satisfaction.
Biologic width (BW) is the distance between the junctional epithelium and the supracrestal connective tissue above the alveolar crest, typically measuring approximately 2.04 mm. It is crucial for the health of periodontal, gingival, and alveolar bone tissues this creates a seal around the tooth’s neck to prevent periodontal disease and gingival inflammation. Violation of BW can create a myriad of complications, like gingival inflammation, attachment loss, and bone loss. The article further discusses restorative and implant margin placement strategies, as well as surgical interventions such as crown lengthening, which help preserve BW. New digital tools provide a more precise assessment of BW in dentistry.
Shape-memory NiTi archwires may improve early orthodontic treatment by reducing plaque retention and enhancing patient comfort. Thus the goal was to assess the effect of shape-memory archwires on plaque retention and comfort in orthodontic patients with active inflammation in a total of 100 patients which were equally divided into 2 groups i.e. group 1 NITI archwire and stainless steel archwire. Plaque index, gingival index, and patient comfort were assessed at Baseline, 1 week, 4 weeks, and 8 weeks. We have found that, both the groups showed improvement over time, but the test group demonstrated a greater reduction in plaque index and gingival index compared with the control group. Patient comfort was also better in the shape-memory archwire group at all follow-up points. The intergroup differences were statistically significant, indicating superior clinical performance of shape-memory archwires. Thus, we have come to conclude that, shapememory NiTi archwires were more effective than stainless steel archwires in reducing plaque retention, improving gingival health, and enhancing patient comfort.
INTRODUCTION:The present study aimed to compare the use of conventional freehand access cavity preparation with the static-guided (SG) endodontic technique in terms of its ability to locate and negotiate root canals, iatrogenic errors (perforations), and the amount of tooth structure loss while treating single-rooted traumatized teeth with pulp canal calcifications. METHODS:This randomized clinical trial was registered in the Clinical Trial Registry of India (https://ctri.nic.in, CTRI/2024/01/061580). A total of 30 patients with traumatized teeth exhibiting calcified root canals were included in the study. The patients were randomly divided into 2 groups as follows: SG endodontic technique and conventional freehand technique. Following the completion of the treatments, the cases were evaluated as either successful (canal located) or failed (perforation or canal not located). In addition, the amount of removed tissue was calculated on the postoperative radiographs using ImageJ software (National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD). Chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests were performed to analyze the data (P = .05). RESULTS:In the SG endodontic group, the root canals were located in all teeth, while in the conventional freehand approach, 13% of cases reported failure to locate the root canals. The tooth sturucture loss was significantly lower in the SG approach compared to the conventional freehand approach (P < .05). CONCLUSION:The conventional freehand technique caused three times more tooth structure loss compared to the SG endodontic approach. There were no failed cases in the SG endodontic technique group, and all root canals were successfully located.
Temporomandibular joint disorders (TMDs) are diagnostically challenging due to the complexity of MRI interpretation and high inter- observer variability among clinicians. Therefore, it is of interest to develop and evaluate artificial intelligence-based tools for automated assessment of TMDs using magnetic resonance imaging. Hence, a total of 2,847 TMJ MRI examinations were used to train and test deep learning models for disc displacement classification, osteoarthritic change detection and joint effusion identification. The convolutional neural network achieved diagnostic accuracies of 94.2%, 91.8% and 93.5%, respectively, with area under the ROC curve values exceeding 0.92 and strong agreement with expert radiologists (κ = 0.87-0.91). The AI system reduced interpretation time by 68%, demonstrating its potential to improve diagnostic accuracy, consistency and efficiency in clinical TMJ evaluation.
