Predicting Prognosis, Success and Failure of Dental Treatments: Influence of Systemic Factors, A Primer for the General Dentist and Specialist

– Metabolic and Endocrine Disorders
(Did you know the relation to sleep disorders and why the morbidity and mortality?How do these affect prognoses of Endo/ Perio/ Restorative / Oral surgical procedures? )
– Pre-diabetes and Diabetes Mellitus
– Hypothyroidism
– Poly-cystic ovarian syndrome/disease (PCOS/PCOD)
– (How this is more prevalent than we thought it was, and how does it affect dentistry?)
– Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis disorders
– (How do these disorders affect both the clinician and the patient?)

– Nutritional deficiencies
(An often-unseen factor; When should we suspect these? What about micronutrients? When should a clinician suspect these as a possible cause of treatment failure?)

– Vitamin D, folate, vitamin B12
– (Is vitamin D really a vitamin or a hormone?)
– Iron, ferritin, and TIBC
– (Do these have any impact on a patient with severe bruxism?)
– Micronutrients: Chromium, Cobalt, Zinc, Copper

– Role of genetics in pain experience
(What are the genes implicated in muscle, joint and nerve pain pertaining to dentistry? How does this affect the outcome of dental treatment?)

– Autoimmune disorders
(Did you know up to 2% of us walk around with rheumatoid arthritis? What are the orofacial manifestations of these conditions?)
– Rheumatoid Arthritis
– Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
– Psoriatic arthritis
– Polymyalgia Rheumatica
– Sjogren’s syndrome

– Infections
(Did you know 90% of the world adult population is infected by EBV and 70% by CMV?)
– EBV, CMV, HIV and COVID-19
– Chikungunya, Dengue
– Emerging US infections
– Lyme disease: The debilitating evil

– Stress and HPA Axis
(The profound effects of stress on the human body: How does it affect the outcome of dental treatment; more importantly how does it affect us the clinicians?)

– Pain in women
(Why were scientists wrong to think women were men dressed in skirts?)

– Influence of sleep disorders on pain
(Did you know too much sleep is associated with early death? Why is quality sleep so important for both patient and the clinician? Why is undiagnosed sleep disorder killing Americans?)

– Chronic fatigue syndrome and Fibromyalgia: A dentists prone?
(Costing Americans 30% household and 50% labor force productivity. How about that patient whose bite you can never seem to make acceptable?)

– Medication-induced pain
(More Americans die of the medications/drugs than the diseases combined!)
– Statins, Clofibrate, Alcohol, Anti-viral drugs

– Disorders affecting the central nervous system.
(Why are these entities on the rise: better diagnosis or something else?)
– Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Parkinsonism/Parkinson’s disease, Multiple sclerosis

– Diseases affecting bone physiology and metabolism.
(Osteopenia, Osteoporosis, Bisphosphonates: Why are bisphosphonates so widely prescribed? What are the implications for the patient and the clinician?)

– Joint hypermobility syndromes
(Did you know JHS has many co-morbidities of significant interest to the dentist?)

– The commonality of systemic pain disorders
(What is common between periodontitis, anxiety, depression, OCD? What is meant by “spectrum of disorders” that dentists should know?)

– Orofacial Pain in Blood Disorders
(Is there any benefit of equilibrating teeth if the jaw pain is caused by anemia or other systemic factors?)

– Cancer pain

– Craniofacial Pain Related to miscellaneous medical conditions

What will you leave this course with?

– How various systemic conditions affect pain experience
– What the dentists should know about the pathology and pathophysiology of the above systemic conditions
– What is new in the screening and diagnosis of the above conditions
– When to suspect a systemic disease, the tell-tale signs of these disorders
– The dentist’s role in early diagnosis of systemic conditions through succinct screening
– How can the dentist save a life