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Highlights in Contemporary Smart Dental Materials: a Review

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Abstract

Purpose of Review

This review focuses on highlights in the literature about contemporary smart dental materials. The concept, classification, requirements, and examples of recently introduced smart dental materials are summarized and described.

Recent Findings

Various recently introduced smart dental materials are described, such as smart resin composites, glass ionomer, pit and fissure sealants, conservative and endodontic instruments, orthodontic wires, silicone elastomer bite registration material, and thermochromic toothbrushes. These materials are highly intelligent and responsive to their surrounding environment. They would potentially provide groundbreaking dental services with enhanced clinical outcomes from the treatment procedures.

Summary

Smart materials can respond to stimuli and environmental changes by activating their functions accordingly. Recently introduced smart dental materials have properties that could be altered in a controlled fashion by stimuli such as stress, temperature, moisture, pH, and electric or magnetic fields. There is a robust trend in dental material science for the development and application of these intelligent, smart dental materials. These materials could allow new and revolutionary dental therapeutic treatments with a significant improvement in the clinical outcome of the treatments. A limitation of the current study is mainly due to a lack of long-term studies about the durability of these materials.

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Data Availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

Abbreviations

ACP :

Amorphous calcium phosphate

VPS :

Vinyl polysiloxane

GIC :

Glass-ionomer cement

HAP :

Hydroxyapatite

CPP-ACP :

Casein phosphopeptides-amorphous calcium phosphate

CaP :

Calcium phosphate

BAG :

Bioactive glass

M :

Monoclinic

C :

Cubic

T :

Tetragonal

CHX :

Chlorhexidine

MDPB :

Methacryloyloxydodecylpyridinium bromide

AMPs :

Antimicrobial peptides

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Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Acknowledgements

Author acknowledges English language proofreading by Elliott Pearl through the AuthorAID network.

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  1. Restorative and Dental Materials Department, Oral and Dental Research Institute, National Research Centre (NRC), Giza, Dokki, 12622, Egypt

    Tamer M. Hamdy

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T. M. Hamdy contributed to the conception and design of the review, collection of data, interpretation of the analyzed data, writing the manuscript, revised and reviewed the draft manuscript, read, and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Tamer M. Hamdy.

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Hamdy, T.M. Highlights in Contemporary Smart Dental Materials: a Review. Curr Oral Health Rep 10, 254–262 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40496-023-00348-x

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