Personalized Dental Medicine
Personalized medicine is receiving an increasing global attention and interest from scientific communities. It relies on understanding genomic structure of individuals which allows for establishing proper treatment planning. Personalized dental medicine is a hot topic that recently attracted researchers, policy makers and dental educators. Traditional dentists and dental educators may think personalized dental medicine focuses on oncology therapy. Yet, personalized dental medicine might be related to everyday practice more one could expect.
Personalized dental medicine allows periodontists, general dentists, preventive dentistry professionals, and prenatal dental counselors to deliver tailored treatments, instructions and risk assessments to patients in need. Dentistry is the healthcare discipline that has a well-documented long history in implementing preventive measures at community and personal levels. Personalized dental medicine helps periodontists to identify patients at higher risk to develop periodontal diseases and establish proper preventive scheme. There is a well-established bidirectional interaction between oral health status and medical diseases. Scientific literature showed that oral care may reduce the risk of complications and improve the status of number of systemic conditions. Personalized dental medicine should allow identifying proper scheme that help mitigate the risk for progression of chronic conditions.
One major challenge that faces the concept of personalized dental medicine is that dental students receive little, if any, genetic education. Education is all about the future of the practice and we are entering the era that genetic and genome play a major role. Revision of dental school’s curriculum becomes a necessity to meet recent revolution in biomedical science. Traditional dental education that defines dentistry as drill and fill will soon become obsolete and will be replaced by recent revolution in the field of biomedical science that integrate preventive medicine into dentistry. Genetic and genome education at dental schools should not be limited to limited to theoretical introduction to definitions and basic concepts. Instead, it should cover practical application in early detection of genetic disorders, sequencing technology, the role of genetic in development of various diseases, and infection between genes and environmental factors and individual attitudes and characteristics.play a major role. Revision of dental school’s curriculum becomes a necessity to meet recent revolution in biomedical science. Traditional dental education that defines dentistry as drill and fill will soon become obsolete and will be replaced by recent revolution in the field of biomedical science that integrate preventive medicine into dentistry. Genetic and genome education at dental schools should not be limited to limited to theoretical introduction to definitions and basic concepts. Instead, it should cover practical application in early detection of genetic disorders, sequencing technology, the role of genetic in development of various diseases, and infection between genes and environmental factors and individual attitudes and characteristics.
Home gene sequencing is available over-the-counter. Many are able to sequence their genes and identify their risk at home, which will result soon in a considerable cohort of the population aware of their risk to develop certain diseases and conditions including dental ones. Increasing public awareness demand dental students equipped with proper knowledge. Nevertheless, the growing “One Health” concept that addresses global health issues in multi- and inter-disciplinary approach requires traditionalists to collaborate with visionary futurists for the overall benefit of the profession.
Written by:
Weam Banjar; BDS., MS. in clinical research
good morning sir, how can we apply personalized medicine in periodontitis? what exactly is the concept of personalized medicine? it will be of great help if u could point me to some study material where i can read about it