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No lasers in your dental practice? Here's what you're missing.

From a start in soft-tissue applications, laser technology has now become a staple feature in the dental clinic. The units are capable of delivering pain-free perio, injection-free surgeries and happier clients - and all for an increasingly low outlay. MED takes a closer look at laser dentistry and how can it zap your balance sheet into the black.

Softly, softly

The number of lasers on the market is as diverse as the procedures they perform. Early soft-tissue lasers used CO₂ or argon as their active medium, but diode lasers are now replacing these units.

Both cut precisely with minimal pain and bleeding, and both can open the door to a wide range of new clinical procedures. Biopsies, frenectomies and gingival contouring - a particular boon for cosmetic dentists - can be completed quickly and effectively.

Dr Jonathan Bregman is a US-based dentist who lectures widely on the benefits of laser dentistry. "Before I started using lasers, I would push these jobs on to more experienced surgical dentists," he confides. "Now, they can all be kept in-house and performed pain-free with a topical anaesthetic."

"The main advantage is that there is very little bleeding and healing time is reduced by up to 50% when compared to using traditional means," agrees Dr Bernard Elliot, manager of the Smiline Dental Centre, Dubai.

"When you are using any blade with or without stitches it can take up to 10 days for the area to completely heal while, with a laser, three to four days is the norm."

Taking a hard line

At the other end of the scale are hard-tissue lasers, used to cut precisely into bone and dental enamel.  These units typically use the Er:YAG system, although recent years have seen the advent of ‘all-tissue' lasers, using the Er,Cr:YSGG system.

Hard-tissue lasers can help simplify treatments such as root canals, cavity preparation and enamel and dentin procedures. As a perk for patients, injections are rarely needed. Bregman estimates that 90% of the basic filling treatments he performs are now anaesthetic-free.

It's a mark of how key the units have become, he argues, that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved laser use in children.

For Dr Jaco Smith, owner of the Dental Studio, Dubai, the chief lure of lasers is that they offer a better dental experience to patients.

"Pain-free dentistry is the key phrase," stresses Smith. "[Lasers] can take away some of that fear factor both with adults and particularly children. And that brings more people to you through word of mouth."

Beam me up

The cost of the units can be a deterrent, but laser converts argue that the technology pays for itself.

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