Paul Feurstein, DMD – New Technology for the Dental Practice: http://www.computersindentistry.com

Flap arrived in Anaheim after an easy 90 minute drive but the parking was slamming – as usual. At 8 in the morning the main parking lot adjacent to the Convention Center was filled and I was directed to the auxiliary lot behind some of the Exhibit Halls.

Note all of the dentists waiting for the tram and the massive containers filled with dental equipment. Flap did not wait for the tram

And, here was the longest line of the morning:

Ok, onto Paul’s class

Flap’s complete CDA photo stream on Flickr is here – updated throughout the day.

Update:

Part two of the course will start shortly. Flap has uploaded lunchtime photos from the CDA Exhibit Hall here.

And, Flap will be live twittering the course in the right sidebar —> or follow Flap on Twitter.

Flap arrived in Anaheim from Thousand Oaks in about 90 minutes which is not bad considering I had to travel through downtown Los Angeles.

The parking was, of course, jammed and expensive ($12). Wonder who owns the parking concession for the Anaheim Convention Center?

Registration was long with lines for all of us CDA’ers who did not pay our dues sufficiently in time to receive mailed credentials and badges. The online registration line was longer than the manual one. I chose the shorter line.

Off to my first class……..

More later and the complete photostream on Flickr is here.

Dr. Katrina Cornish examines Guayule seedlings while at USDA

From the American Dental Association: FDA issues market clearance for new form of latex glove

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared for marketing a patient examination glove made from a new form of natural rubber latex, the first approval of a device derived from a desert plant native to the Southwestern United States. The FDA regulates medical-dental devices.

“This approval has the potential to make a significant difference to both the general public and the medical community at large,” said Daniel Schultz, M.D., director of FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “Gloves made from guayule latex may prove to be a safer alternative for some people with sensitivity to traditional latex. And yet they will not sacrifice the desirable properties of traditional latex such as flexibility and strength.”

American Dental Association latex allergy notices for the profession and patients are posted at www.ada.org under Oral Health Topics. The ADA Web site also includes information on hand hygiene and glove use and skin care and lotion use with latex gloves. “Some dental healthcare workers have developed hypersensitivity to proteins derived from natural rubber latex used in certain medical and dental devices, including examination and surgical gloves,” says an ada.org notice on personal protective equipment. “These workers should use PPE made of an alternative material.” Patients are encouraged to advise the dental office staff “if you have had a prior allergic reaction to latex-containing objects.”

The FDA-approved product, the Yulex Patient Examination Glove, is derived from the guayule bush, a desert plant native to the Southwest. The Yulex Corp., Maricopa, Ariz., said in a press release that examination gloves made with patented Yulex natural rubber, and cleared by the FDA, do not contain proteins associated with allergic reactions to latex products. Traditional latex gloves are made from the milky sap of a rubber tree.

Flap has been fortunate that he has never experienced (first hand – sorry for the bad pun) a latex allergy to gloves. But, I have seen it for others, including dentists, assistants, hygienists and patients. The use of other glove substitutes do not provide the snugness of fit like latex.

Flap is looking forward to the distribution of this product. But, will they be able to ramp up production to satisfy demand?

The website for the Yulex Corporation is here.

After the removal of an outer layer of bones around the jaw, the dissection shows blood vessels and sensory nerves to the lower teeth and chin. The process was slow, in part because the Kodachrome film had to be sent to Kodak in Rochester, N.Y., to be developed. Mr. Gruber had to check that the photos came out satisfactorily before Dr. Basset could proceed with his dissection. Photo courtesy of New York Times

This amazing and wonderful work on human anatomy in three dimensions will soon be online thanks to Stanford University.

Dr. David L. Bassett, was an expert in anatomy and dissection at the University of Washington. For more than 17 years, he was engaged in creating what has been called the most painstaking and detailed set of images of the human body, inside and out, ever produced. In 3-D.

Working closely with William Gruber, the inventor of the View-Master, the three-dimensional viewing system that GAF Corporation popularized as a toy in the 1960s, Dr. Bassett created the 25-volume “Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy” in 1962. It included some 1,500 pairs of slides, along with line drawings that made the details more discernible. The paired slides could be examined with a View-Master, making the chest cavity look cavernous, and making details of structure and tissue stand out unforgettably.

The atlas was an immediate success and the images became an important resource for medical students, even more so as schools have de-emphasized gross anatomy and cadaver work. But the atlas eventually went out of publication in the 1960s.

Thanks to Stanford University’s school of medicine, however, the work will soon be available to the world. The school is bringing the images online, (See a sampling.). The school has also worked with eHuman, a company in Silicon Valley that hopes to charge students and the curious for access to the trove. Rolling a computer mouse over an image at the eHuman site will highlight anatomical details, and bring up the line drawings from the atlas. So far access to the head and neck collection is $8 a month. Nothing else is online yet.

The Bassett Collection on Flickr is here.

Access to The Bassett Online anatomical collection can be purchased here. This isa must purchase for dental students, researchers and clinicians alike.

The masseter muscle of mastication reflected back to expose the jawbone (mandible) and the related vessels, nerves and muscles.

Aurora Johnson, left, a dental therapist, filled cavities for Paul Towarak, 10, in the village of Unalakleet, Alaska. For more involved procedures, Ms. Johnson refers patients to a dentist. Photo courtesy of New York Times

If the dental therapists must have two years of training, how is that different than a three year program at an American Dental School?

Answer: One year of training

And, that solves access to care or the cost of dental care how?

A sample of the crown and bridge work available from China Dental Outsourcing

From the American Dental Association:

When news of lead contamination in an outsourced dental crown hit the presses in late February, the ADA called on the nation’s leading health agencies to address safety concerns raised by the reports. Association leaders are gratified by their responses.

The CDC explained that the level of lead reported in the crown in the media reports —approximately 200 parts per million—is “highly unlikely” to be a health risk to an adult.

“Such small amounts of lead as reported, are extremely unlikely to cause adverse health effects in adults,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told the ADA in its response. “Given the current information, CDC does not recommend that individuals defer needed oral procedures or have existing prostheses removed.”

That said, the CDC noted that it recommends against the unnecessary use of lead in consumer products, including dental crowns.

“I’m relieved that the CDC sees no threat to patients based upon the trace amount of lead reported,” said ADA President Mark Feldman. “We are still conducting our own test of dental prostheses and are gratified that CDC has offered to interpret any health impact of the results”.

So, patients will NOT need crowns which have been outsourced to China replaced. But, how would they ever know if their crowns or other prostheses have been made overseas in the first place – and to what standards.

Flap bets there will be state by state legislation requiring disclosure by dentists to their patients on where their prostheses are manufactured and the materials used.

In the meantime, outsourcing will continue but with increasing scrutiny by the feds and the protestations of American dental laboratories and patients alike.