The tenets of minimal intervention dentistry (MID) allow dental practitioners to pursue holistic and cause-based management of the disease “dental caries,” with the aim of maintaining healthy functional teeth for life. Effective management of dental caries is characterized by detection of early lesions and subsequent accurate diagnosis, by caries activity and risk assessment, and by preventing occurrence of new carious lesions.
The management of cavitated carious lesions focuses on arresting or controlling (including restoring) existing lesions through minimally invasive restorative treatments (evidence informed), including repairing rather than replacing defective restorations. Given the pathologic basis for dental caries as a biofilm disease, both prevention of new lesions and management of existing lesions should focus primarily on control or management rather than tissue removal.
For existing carious lesions, different lesion stages and activities might require different management, all of which should aim towards:
- Inactivation/control of the disease process
- Preservation of dental hard tissue
- Avoidance of initiating the cycle of re-restorations
- Preservation of the tooth for as long as possible.
The presentation will discuss the underlying reasons for the development of MID and the effectiveness of various enamel carious lesion preventive measures and those of managing dentine carious lesions.
Biography
Jo Frencken is Emeritus professor in Minimal Intervention Dentistry at the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He obtained a MSc degree in Dental Public Health from the University of London and a PhD degree from the University of Nijmegen. He has been employed as a private practitioner, researcher, university lecturer and policy maker in Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. He served as an epidemiologist/researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Preventive Health Care. His current interest covers minimal intervention dentistry c.q., prevention and minimal operative intervention techniques, in particular the Atraumatic Restorative Treatment approach, cariological principles and caries epidemiology.
He has published extensively with colleagues from many nations. The Academy of Dentistry International awarded him the title of ‘International Dentist-of-the-Year’ (1998-99) for his international leadership in the dental profession. He held a Guest Professorship at the University of Wuhan, China, the University of Cordoba, Argentina and the Maimonides University in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He received a Doctor Honoris Causa from The National University of Cuya in Mendoza, Argentina in 2015 and from the University of Dundee in 2022. The Government of the Republic of China awarded him in 2015 the prestigious International Science and Technology Cooperation Prize for developing and disseminating the ART approach; the Swedish Patent Revenue Fund in 2016 the Yngve Ericsson Prize for Research in Preventive Odontology; and the IADR in 2017 the Distinguished Scientist H. Trendley Dean Memorial Award.
