RESEARCH ARTICLE


“Evidence-Based Dentistry in Oral Surgery: Could We Do Better?”



Pier Francesco Nocini1, *, Giuseppe Verlato2, Andrea Frustaci1, Antonio de Gemmis1, Giovanni Rigoni1, Daniele De Santis1
1 Department of Maxillo-facial Surgery and Dentistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Verona. Piazzale L. A. Scuro 10, 37134, Verona, Italy
2 Unit of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Istituti Biologici 2, Strada le Grazie 8, 37134, Verona, Italy

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2010
Volume: 4
First Page: 77
Last Page: 83
Publisher ID: TODENTJ-4-77
DOI: 10.2174/1874210601004010077

Article History:

Received Date: 6/10/2009
Revision Received Date: 14/10/2009
Acceptance Date: 14/10/2009
Electronic publication date: 16/7/2010
Collection year: 2010

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Creative Commons License
© Nocini et al.; Licensee Bentham Open.

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Maxillo-facial Surgery and Dentistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Verona. Piazzale L. A. Scuro 10, 37134, Verona, Italy; Tel: +39 0458124251; Fax: +39 0458027437; E-mail: pierfrancesco.nocini@univr.it


Abstract

Evidence-based Dentistry (EBD), like Evidence-based Medicine (EBM), was born in order to seek the “best available research evidence” in the field of dentistry both in research and clinical routine.

But evidence is not clearly measurable in all fields of healthcare: in particular, while drug effect is rather independent from clinician’s characteristics, the effectiveness of surgical procedures is strictly related to surgeon’s expertise, which is difficult to quantify. The research problems of dentistry have a lot in common with other surgical fields, where at the moment the best therapeutic recommendations and guidelines originates from an integration of evidence-based medicine and data from consensus conferences.

To cope with these problems, new instruments have been developed, aimed at standardizing clinical procedures (CAD-CAM technology) and at integrating EBM achievements with the opinions of expert clinicians (GRADE System).

One thing we have to remember however: it is necessary to use the instruments developed by evidence-based medicine but is impossible to produce sound knowledge without considering clinical expertise and quality of surgical procedures simultaneously. Only in this way we will obtain an evidence-based dentistry both in dental research and clinical practice, which is up to third millennium standards.

Key Words: EBD, Oral surgery, Surgeon's expertise, Third Millennium research, GRADE System.