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interview industry news | when manufacturing clear aligners, thus render- ing the final result less accurate, more expensive, more time consuming and more control required. Second is the complexity of applying the exact de- signed forces on the software for manufacturing the clear aligners, you might need accessories, more attachments on the teeth, etc. to overcome the limitations of clear aligners. Third, is the com- fort of the patients as with clear aligners or braces patients need numerous amounts of aligners or wires to be changed throughout the treatment. How will 4-D technology tackle these prob- lems? 4-D technology promises to solve the afore- mentioned points and more. A short explanation of how this works is as follows. Teeth are normally 3-D scanned, then through the 3-D CAD software, aligners or orthodontic wire is made as a negative replica of the model stage representing the corre- sponding movement that shows where and how teeth need to be moved. The software allows you to put in joints and layers that allow contraction at one side and expansion on the other, and thus on the 3-D software we could stage all the aligner or wire shapes that will be self-morphed by the ma- terial. The object (i.e. aligner or wire) is 3-D printed using special Meta material that is responsive to the built-in software joints and layers. When the object is placed in the mouth there are fortunately the two most effective stimuli for the material to change its shape which is salivation (i.e. fluids) and 37 degree body temperature (i.e. heat). So simply, the patient wears an aligner or wire on brackets that keeps changing its shape gradually to reach the final form through applying light contin- uous forces on teeth. Each aligner or orthodontic wire can be worn for over 5 months depending on the movements that were programmed on the software from the initial planning stage. How would you describe the advantages that will be implemented in orthodontics using the 4-D concept? The advantages are quite clear, as patients will enjoy a more friendly treatment where they don’t have to visit their orthodontist as regularly as they used to as this coincides with the recent ap- proaches of distant treatments applied in ortho- dontics nowadays. Also many treatments won’t need the refinements as they did before, such as the clear aligner treatments, which has had nega- tive experiences. Most of all, the precision of force application and distribution is way more precise as with the software, the exact force, amount and time will be controlled; furthermore the aligner thickness can be altered depending on the need and can be controlled throughout the whole treat- ment to keep the force and anchorage distribution absolutely stable and avoid the variability that was experienced with previous clear aligner systems. When do you think this technology will be available on the market? We hope we can bring this technology into light very soon, yet a rational expectation would be to expect it to enter the market in 2019 and change many applied current treatment concepts in or- thodontics. Technology is shifting really quickly these days, how do you see it evolving in the next few years in orthodontics? I see 4-D printing and augmented reality to be one of the game changers in medicine in the up- coming years. How could we get more information and even follow up this upcoming high technology? Currently, the internet contains many ap- proaches in 4-D tech, yet for orthodontic applica- tion you could follow up more on the following webpage www.kline-europe.de/4dortho Thank you for the valuable input and we hope to hear even more about the new inventions soon. Thank you for this opportunity and I hope that this advanced technology can bring more welfare to our patients._ Editorial note: This interview has been prepared in collabo- ration with the K Line Europe GmbH dental coordination team. Dr Sherif Kandil ortho 1 2017 41