today ADX Sydney 2014

dental news4 ADX14 Sydney HIV infections in Australia jumped by 10 per cent last year, ac- cording to recently published fig- ures from the University of New SouthWales.Agroupofresearchers from Sydney have recently started investigating whether dental prac- tices and pharmacies could help stop the further spread of the virus bydiagnosingmorepeoplewhoare infectedandnotawareofitthrough rapid oral HIV testing. Thetrial,conductedincollabora- tionwiththeUniversityofSydney’s Faculty of Dentistry, Western Syd- ney Sexual Health, and Sydney SchoolofPublicHealth,iscurrently beingconductedinthestatesofNew South Wales, Victoria and Queens- land.Itseekstoexamineknowledge of HIV, attitudes towards people liv- ing with HIV and the willingness of Australiandentiststoconductrapid HIV testing, lead researcher Dr An- thony Santella from the Sydney Medical School told Dental Tribune Asia Pacific. He said that studies on the willingness of dental patients to acceptsuchtestingwerealsobegun recently. Depending on the test results, the team will further investigate how to implement them in prac- tices that operate in neighbour- hoods with high HIV prevalence ratesincitieslikeSydney.Thisstep is anticipated for next year. “Evaluations would also need to be done to explore whether it is cost- effective to implement rapid HIV testing in the dental setting versus other settings,” Santella added. “As- suming it is cost-effective, we would thenexplorereimbursementmecha- nisms so dentists and possibly other dental professionals could bulk bill thegovernmentforthetest.” RapidHIVtestshavebeenavail- able to medical practitioners in Australia since late 2012, but the country has been slow to im- plement them. The OraQuick ADVANCE Rapid HIV-1/2 Anti- body Test developed by US com- pany OraSure Technologies and used in the trial has not yet re- ceived approval from the Aus- tralian Therapeutic Goods Admin- istration. It has been available to dental prac- titioners in the USA since early last year, whenitwasapprovedby the Food and Drug Ad- ministration. The latest studies suggest that rapid HIV testing in den- tal practices could in- creasetestingfrequency among regular testers, as well as testing rates. According to the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales, about 25 per cent of HIV cases in Australia are undiagnosed. In to- tal, more than 31,000 in- fections were reported in 2011, with almost every second one occur- ring in New South Wales. Objects in a mirror appearing to be farther away than they are is a common illusion encountered by car drivers around the world every day. Misleading visual per- ception of an object could also be the reason that dentists some- timesdrilllargercavitiesthannec- essary to fill a tooth or prepare a root canal, a team of psychologists and dental researchers from Aus- tralia and New Zealand has sug- gested. In clinical field tests involving eight practising endodontic spe- cialists from New Zealand and con- ducted in 2002 and 2006, the re- searchersfoundthatdentalprofes- sionals tend to fall trap to the Delboeufillusion,whichmakesen- closed areas appear smaller than they actually are when seen in a larger context. In their case, a cav- ity drilled into a tooth appeared to be smaller when the surrounding tissue was in range of the parame- ters of the illusion, leading to more healthy tissue being removed at the expense of patients. The researchers said in the re- port that it remains unknown whether dentists are aware of this when drilling but recommended that their findings be incorporated into the early stages of clinical training to decrease the risk of cracking or perforating the root end due to having removed too much healthy tissue. It should also be extended to other fields of health-care treatment that could beaffectedbyvisualillusions,they added. “When operating, health-care providers try to save as much healthy tissue as possible. It is im- portanttoknowthattheireyescan deceive them into removing more healthy tissue than necessary,” lead author of the study and psy- chology expert from the Univer- sity of Southern Cross in Australia Prof. Robert O’Shea commented. Named after its creator, Joseph Remi Leopold Delboeuf, a Belgian scientist, the illusion was first doc- umented in 1865. It has been re- ported to be used by restaurants to trick customers regarding the size of their dishes by using smaller plates, among other things. For the latest study, more than 20 extracted and root-filled teeth were treated by each participant, who had not been informed about the parameters of the illusion. The participants were asked to remove as little tissue as possible when preparingtheteethandtousetheir usual hand instruments. Researchers evaluate implementation of rapid oral HIV tests in dental practices The OraQuick test can detect antibodies to the HIV virus with an oral swap. (Photo courtesy of OraSure Tech- nologies, USA) Aussie study suggests dentists are prone to visual illusion Cavities made by the participants of the study were often made too large, which could be due totheDelboeufillusion,whichmakesenclosedareasappearsmallerthantheyactuallyarewhen seen in a larger context. (DTI/Photo courtesy of Robert P. O’Shea, Australia) Roland DG Australia, a provider of milling and 3-D engraving tech- nologies, has opened a 3-D and dental creative centre at its head- quarters in Sydney. The facility was established to strengthen the company’s position in the dental and manufacturing industries throughout Australia, New Zea- land and the ASEAN region. The new facility is mainly fo- cused on Roland’s Easy Shape Den- tal Solution and the DWX range of dentalmillingmachines,including the DWX-50, which was specifi- cally designed for dental laborato- riesandtechniciansfortheproduc- tion of dental prostheses, includ- ing crowns, bridges and abut- ments, and the DWX-4, which was releasedlastOctoberastheworld’s smallestdentalmillingmachineby the company. The facility was officially opened at the company’s 25th an- niversary event in November. In addition to a vast range of equipment set up for live demon- strations and product develop- ment, the facility has an adjacent training room equipped for inter- active training sessions and semi- nars. An array of application sam- ples are also on display, the com- pany stated. Roland DG Corporation, which has its headquarters in Japan, is a global manufacturer of inkjet de- vices, milling and engraving de- vices, 3-D scanners, and a number ofotherproducts.Thecompanyen- tered the health care market only recently by introducing milling machines designed for creating dental prostheses. Roland DGAustralia expands into dental businessThe number of dentists in Aus- tralia has increased, as well as the number of women working in the fieldinparticular.Today,morethan a third of dentists registered in the countryarefemale,accordingtoan employment report released by the Aus- tralian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) in January. “Whiledentistryis traditionally a male- dominated profes- sion, the proportion of female dentists rose from about 35 per cent to almost 37 per cent between 2011 and 2012,” said AIHW spokesperson Dr Adrian Webster. The report also revealed that 97 per centofemployedden- tal therapists, 95 per cent of em- ployeddentalhygienistsand85per cent of employed oral therapists in 2012 were female, while dental prosthetistsweremuchmorelikely to be male, with women making up only 15 per cent of this group. With regard to age distribution, there weremorementhanwomenacross all age groups except in the youngest (20–34 years), with the most men in the 45–54 age group (1,874), followed by the 55–64 age group (1,844). Overall, 19,462 dental practitioners were registered in Australia in 2012, of whom 14,687 or two thirds were den- tists. The report also showed that 1,600 (8.3percent)worked as dental hygienists, 1,276(6.6percent)as dental therapists, 1,161 (6 per cent) as dental prosthetists and738(3.8percent) as oral health thera- pists. More female dentists inAustralia