Amalgams are history. Despite the restorative material’s dominance during much of the 20th Century, the contemporary product category of electronic health records cruised to a first-round upset in the opening round of DentistryIQ.com’s “Greatest Dental Invention of All Time” bracket.
Electronic health records are now pitted against ultrasonic magnetostrictive scalers in the second round of the friendly contemplation among dental professionals about what is the greatest dental invention ever in the science of dentistry.
PLAY:Choose what you think are the greatest dental inventions (second round)
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For the upstart product category of electronic health records to advance to the “final four,” it would have to first beat out ultrasonic magnetostrictive scalers and then face off against either ergonomic seating or implants.
Some of the more traditional dental products such as fluoride, impression materials, orthodontic braces, floss, toothpaste, X-rays, dentures, and anesthetics coasted while advancing to the second round. But the competition gets tougher; participants in the “Greatest Dental Invention of All Time” bracket have to choose between:
• Anesthetics and powered toothbrushes
• Floss and sterilizers
• Toothpaste and dental lasers
• Fluoride varnish and X-rays
• Impression materials and mirrors
• Orthodontic braces and cements
The biggest contest of the second round could be fluoride against dentures. Fluoridation helped eliminate much of the need for premature extractions due to aging, but dentures unquestionably gave toothless consumers a new lease on life for decades until implants started becoming more popular. Amalgams, though, also served a valuable dental function for decades, yet it is already on the sidelines as one of the science’s greatest inventions.
