Smart Material for Smarter Dentistry

Smart materials encompass a variety of substances, including smart antimicrobial peptides, pit and fissure sealants, impression materials, cement, and sutures. These materials can change properties under specific stimuli such as temperature, stress, moisture, pH, or electric and magnetic fields. These constituents signify the commencement of a novel era or epoch in the field of smart dentistry and exhibit the potential for enhanced efficacy in the future.

Be Smart and Active in Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics

Numerous aspects of dentistry have been transformed by smart materials. In recent years, there have been advancements in dental materials that exhibit improved biological compatibility. These materials are specifically designed to interact effectively with the fluids found in the oral cavity, including saliva and gingival crevicular fluids. The search for the optimum restorative material results in the development of a more recent generation of dental materials known as smart materials. Smart materials react to stimuli, including stress, temperature, moisture, pH, electric field, and magnetic field, in a regulated way. Some of them are biomimetic and can imitate the dentin and enamel seen in natural teeth. These resources herald the start of a new era in dentistry known as "Smart Dentistry," and they project a promising future in terms of improved dependability and efficiency. These types of diverse materials can pick up and perform definite functionalities regarding adjustments in the nearby surroundings. Based on their capacity for recognition, analysis, and discrimination, these materials might be able to foresee problems in the near future. The superior biocompatibilities of smart materials, which have brought about a new generation of biosmart dentistry, are a crucial component of their utilization in numerous dental applications. We should use any material with intelligence as we progress in innovation and advanced technology. Additionally, we should purposefully incorporate intelligence into existing materials through design. Smart materials have proven advantageous in the field of dentistry, particularly in restorative applications. Various dental products, including smart composites, resin-modified glass ionomer materials, pit, and fissure sealants releasing amorphous calcium phosphate (ACP), smart ceramics, and compomers have all witnessed positive advancements due to the integration of smart materials.

How 'smart' is smart dentistry?

Background: Latest advances in information and health technologies enabled dentistry to follow the paradigm shift occurring in medicine – the transition to so called smart medicine. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to assess how ‘smart’ is smart dentistry as of the end of 2018.

Methods: We analysed the state of the art in smart dentistry, performing bibliometric mapping on a corpus of smart dentistry papers found in the Scopus bibliographical database.

Results: The search resulted in a corpus of 3451 papers, revealing that smart dentistry research is following the progress in smart medicine; however, there are some gaps in some specific areas like gamification and use of holistic smart dentistry systems.

Conclusions: Smart dentistry is smart; however, it must become smarter.