Digital technologies have improved ways to perform aesthetic dentistry in the last few years. The aims of this survey were to investigate the most preferred way to preview the result of an aesthetic dental rehabilitation among a population of dental professionals and laypeople and to compare aesthetic standards of the general population and dentists in terms of the color of teeth for aesthetic dental rehabilitations. Patients and Methods: A questionnaire was sent to the subjects (dentists and laypeople) during a 1-year period and, together with their demographic data, different ways to preview the result of an aesthetic rehabilitation were submitted, such as digital smile design, dental wax-up and oral explanation. Furthermore, an additional section of the questionnaire investigated the most suitable color for an aesthetic rehabilitation based on the colors of the VITA Scale. Results were statistically analyzed (with Chi-square of independence and Mann-Whitney U-test) highlighting differences of answers based on age groups, educational attainment, gender, and belonging or not to the dental field. Results: Findings showed that digital smile design (digital preview) is a high-appreciated method for previewing and communicating with patients both by dental professionals and laypeople. Furthermore, lighter colors were found to be more valued by laypeople and significant differences were highlighted between the two populations assessed. Conclusion: It seems to be viable to use digital preview for dentists and laypeople to improve previewing and communicating ways. It might be advisable to better motivate patients in recognizing aesthetical features and to raise their awareness in preferring more mimetic aesthetic results. Great opportunities are opened up by digital smile design in teaching, learning, and routine practice.

Background: Nowadays, digital dentistry is a fundamental skill that dentists need to acquire at this time. The digital workflow has gained acceptance and is widely used in most disciplines of dentistry. For this reason, it might be advisable to include this content in the undergraduate curriculum. The aim of this work was to create a course in digital aesthetic dentistry and evaluate its effectiveness. Methods: Dental students at the University of Verona (from third to sixth year) participated in a 2-h course on photography, digital aesthetic analysis, and digitally planned rehabilitations. Students were randomly divided into two groups, the first group attending the course with video tutorials and the second group attending the traditional class with slides. The students’ ability to perform digital aesthetic analysis and rehabilitation was tested. In addition, a questionnaire was completed to determine student satisfaction with the course and method of delivery. Statistical analysis was performed. Results: The course was highly appreciated, especially by the students who received the video tutorials. Good results were obtained in the performance of digital analysis and rehabilitation, which were better in the first group. Conclusions: Digital aesthetic dentistry was a success in terms of newly acquired skills. From this point of view, the proposal of a course on this subject in the undergraduate curriculum deserves a close evaluation. The video tutorial method seems to be a good way to teach operative digital procedures.

IntroductionCOVID‐19 emergency caused several effects on the dental educational system, especially affecting courses including practical activities. The study aims to evaluate the impact of the suspension of dental clinical activities on the Italian dental students' self‐confidence. Furthermore, the other purpose of the research is to find an integrative didactics solution to improve the clinical training of dentistry during the COVID‐19 pandemic.Materials and MethodsA questionnaire was administered to evaluate the impact of the suspension of clinical activities on dental students' self‐confidence. A 67‐questions survey tested the students' self‐confidence in several dental disciplines (Conservative Dentistry, Endodontics, Oral Surgery and Dental Emergency). The study reached a sample of 193 dental students and the answers from 9 different Italian dental schools were analysed.ResultsThe degree of students' self‐confidence for all the dental disciplines investigated was found statistically different between the periods before and after the interruption of clinical activities. The students proposed, as a potential solution to improve their practice during the COVID‐19 pandemic, to combinate the use of a video tutorials and dental simulators.ConclusionThe interruption of the training in clinical practice significantly affected the educational career and the self‐confidence of students. An alternative teaching method involving the use of video tutorials as support in teaching clinical procedures deserves to be considered.

Objectives: The aims of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of teledentistry (based on a home intraoral imaging protocol) in detecting dental caries and to assess the accuracy of this method compared to clinical examination.Methods: Forty-three patients were recruited for the study. Using a protocol for taking intraoral photographs at home with a smartphone proposed by the Dental School of Verona, a remote diagnosis of dental caries (TD) was performed by an experienced dentist. The same caries sites were also assessed by clinical diagnosis (CD) by a second experienced dentist. Ten photos were taken at home in five different perspectives, with and without flash, and emailed to one of the authors.The best five photos were selected for telediagnosis. The International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS II) score was used for caries diagnosis.Statistical tests were performed: Sensitivity and specificity of TD, the positive and negative predictive value of TD (PPV-NPV), and Spearman correlation to evaluate the relationship between the scores of TD and CD.Results: A total of 430 photographs were submitted; TD was performed on 215 photographs and 43 patients were visited. A total of 1201 teeth were analyzed. The sensitivity of TD was 74.0, the specificity was 99.1, the PPV of TD was 91.7, and the NPV was 96.4. The Spearman correlation was 0.816, showing a very strong correlation between the values obtained with TD and CD. Conclusions:The study showed good potential for TD, which proved to be a feasible method to combine with routine caries diagnosis in daily preventive dentistry practice.

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