Ridwaan Omar
Abstract
Tooth wear has for long received much attention in an anthropological context. In contrast, the dental literature had afforded it less attention until about the mid-1990s, when reports began appearing about the very high prevalence, in children and in adolescents, of tooth wear, due in the main to dental erosion. These findings appear to have triggered a strong interest in the subject, and over the past 10 years approximately 1500 publications have appeared in the PubMed database using the search terms "tooth erosion" or "tooth abrasion" or "tooth attrition". This represents a 50% increase over the preceding decade, in research covering the various areas of the field. This presentation will briefly highlight some of the key areas of current interest, including topics such as mechanisms of wear, diagnosis, effects arising from systemic diseases – but in the main the focus will be on the different aspects of the management of the worn dentition. From the traditional invasive approach to managing tooth wear, treatment nowadays is increasingly aimed at correcting or improving the effects of wear by a minimally-invasive nature. Therapeutic approaches, including novel ones arising from the rapid developments in dental materials science will be reviewed. The need for more clinical trials on these newer approaches will be stressed.