Digital Library for Dental Biomaterials

Introduction

The digital revolution affects our lives daily. The introduction of computer technology has greatly affected the way the restorative dentist practices, and the evolution of cyber technologies in dentistry are no longer a fantasy. Adhesive dentistry has replaced the manner in which we prepare, restore, and bond restorations to teeth. The entire field of ceramics and methods of fabricating aesthetic restorations are entering a new era. The exceptional prognosis of various implant systems has changed the way we think about maintaining hopeless teeth. Through tissue engineering (TE), the 21st century may be revolutionary in the way we replace missing teeth and lost tooth structure.

Further on, in today’s globalized world, scientific discoveries are introduced and swiftly absorbed into clinical practice. In dentistry, new products are launched daily, most of which are used in oral and dental surgery. When these products or biomaterials, are used, they come into direct contact with living tissues, such as dentin, pulp, the alveolar bone and periodontal tissue, and sometimes stay in contact for prolonged periods (Figure 2a).

Figure 2.

(a) Examples of application of few biomaterials in Maxillo-facial and oral surgery reconstructions; (b) List of few digital libraries existing on WEB where biomaterial’ s characteristics could be found

In order to gather together huge knowledge from this interdisciplinary field, we will try to help in this work, organizing digital library for dental biomaterials, its long-term preservation, accessibility and usability. Consequently, our tem plan to create new digital library which will be designed to cover the following aims, as presented in Road map at Figure 1.

Figure 1.

System architecture of digital library for dental biomaterials

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  Allowing content and knowledge to be produced, stored, managed, personalized, transmitted, preserved and used reliably, efficiently and at low cost;

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  Allowing making the management and production tools for digital resources easier and more cost- effective, to create and reuse;

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  Allowing more creative approaches to content and knowledge, enabling creators to design more participative and communicative media and increase the productivity of publishers;

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  Enabling the mass-individualization of learning experiences, through systems allowing faster acquisition of competences and skills, increased knowledge worker productivity, and more efficient organizational future learning processes.

Biomaterial is defined, in the broader sense, as any pharmacologically inert material that is capable of interacting with a living organism without causing adverse reactions either at the site of the implant or across the whole organism (Agrawal,1998). The treatment with dental biomaterials of gum, mucosal and hard tissues, represents a therapeutic risk that can only be contained if the dental professional has knowledge of the qualities, strengths and properties of the products (Figure 3). The use of biomaterials without any recognized criteria for bio-safety not only causes clinical problems such as therapeutic failure, but also gives rise to ethically conflicting situations (Figure 13). This is because the patient may undergo treatment without knowing about the subsequent risks, either to himself or to the dental professional.

Figure 3.

Food and Drug Administration – Department of Health and Human Services- Listing of Dental Devices (Changed and adapted)