Implant Treatment in Patients with Sjogren’s Syndrome: A Review of the Literature and Two Clinical Case Reports

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The British Society of Prosthodontics 2016 Conference: Manchester The 2016 Annual Conference took place in Manchester on Friday 18th & Saturday 19th March at the iconic Bridgewater Hall. The theme for the conference was ‘Progress & Precision in Prosthodontics’, showing how advances in technology and a greater understanding of disease processes mirror a background and history of precision work. Last year’s conference in London (under the Presidency of Peter Briggs) was held on a Friday and Saturday for the first time – this popular choice was continued for this year, and was also beneficial as the Friday matched the usual study day for the region’s foundation dentists. The venue was booked to capacity with a broad range of delegates ranging from foundation dentists, general dentists, postgraduate and specialty trainees as well as established specialists and consultants. The conference was formally opened by Mr Nicholas Taylor, local Postgraduate Dental Dean and Chairman of COPDEND. Mr Peter Briggs chaired the morning session, inviting our first speaker to commence the scientific programme. Dr Chris Orr, one of the most prominent cosmetic dentists and educators in the UK, gave a talk entitled ‘Aesthetics and function: can we have our cake and eat it?’ Chris presented a broad overview, encouraging a ‘balanced’ approach to treatment planning in aesthetic cases. He gave a brief but thorough overview of smile design and options for improving appearance – stressing the role of conservative direct options as well as more destructive indirect options, showing several cases of direct build-up with fantastic end results. He discussed the need to consider and plan changes to vertical dimension carefully, and also recapped functional considerations and the need in many cases to consider occlusal relationships and schemes as part of an aesthetic plan. Dr Rupert Austin, Clinical Lecturer and Specialist in Prosthodontics at King’s College London Dental Institute, was our next speaker, with an exciting and modern topic ‘Restoration of teeth: digital scanning and milling’. Rupert took the audience back in time when digital dentistry was in its infancy and beautifully demonstrated what challenges the inventors of such technologies faced and overcame as digital impressions and milling techniques evolved with time. Rupert gave the audience a clear grasp of how digital dentistry compared to conventional techniques of impression taking, creating casts and fabricating prostheses throughout its life story of evolution and explained how the users of these modern techniques benefitted, and occasionally suffered, from its many advantages and occasional shortfalls. He then explained how digital techniques are growing to become faster, more precise and more user-friendly and in many cases more economically justifiable. He ended his presentation with a systematic comparison of the current market leaders, their superiorities and deficiencies.