United States

Temporization in dentistry refers to the placement of temporary prosthetics in the patient’s mouth until the permanent crown, bridge or implant is ready to be planted. The large majority of temporary restoratives use composite resin and acrylic as their base material. Composites are biocompatible, aesthetically pleasing and quick to place in the intraoral cavity. However, they can exhibit surface hardness and are more expensive than acrylic products.

The dental core build-up material market is a relatively small segment compared to restoratives or bonding agents because the core build-up step is not required at every indirect restoration procedure. A core build-up is a restoration placed on a severely damaged tooth in order to restore the bulk of the coronal portion of the tooth. The core is defined to be part of the preparation of an ‘indirect restoration’ consisting of restorative material. The material is only necessary in cases where there is extensive damage done by tooth decay or after a root canal. Root canals tend to make teeth more susceptible to fractures. Therefore, positioning a crown after a root canal usually requires core build-up.

Dental local anesthesia has a long history going back to the late 19th century. The first anesthetic used in American dentistry being nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas. Even before that, cocaine was a drug used commonly to alleviate toothache in European countries such as Germany. The purpose of these measures was to prevent patients from feeling pain locally, for procedures such as tooth extraction. Today, similar, but safer, drugs are used to stop nerve endings from sensing pain, allowing the dentist to conduct painful procedures such as crown placements, root canals or gum disease treatment. Without local anesthesia, the contemporary focus on restorative work in dentistry could not have been possible.