Factors to consider when treatment planning for patients seeking comprehensive aesthetic dental treatment Zaid Ali Martin Ashley Chris West Dental Update 2024 40:7, 707-709.
Orthodontic Specialist and Clinical Teaching Fellow in Orthodontics, University Dental Hospital of Manchester, Higher Cambridge Street, Manchester, M15 6FH, UK
Co-operation between specialties, improvements in dental materials, bonding technology, increase in public awareness of ‘cosmetic dentistry’ and patients' desires to improve their appearance, mean that, increasingly, dental practitioners are being asked how elective treatment may be used to improve their patients' smiles. Traditionally, a dentist's role has been to treat disease and promote oral health. Elective, invasive dental treatment needs careful consideration and, often, interdisciplinary planning. The issues dentists may need to consider and discuss with their patients are outlined with reference to dental literature.
Clinical Relevance: Requests to dentists to embark upon complex elective treatments to improve their patients' dental appearance are on the increase. It is important that clinicians appropriately assess cases prior to committing to a treatment plan. Considerations to be taken when assessing these patients are discussed.
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In the context of dentistry, the term aesthetic, derived from ‘aesthesis’ the Greek word for perception, implies the perception of beauty in a person's smile.1 Interest in the ‘science’ behind beauty led theorists to put forward ideas like the ‘Divine/Golden Proportion' proposed by Pythagoras and his followers in 530BC.2 The study of aesthetics in dentistry involves appreciation of the roles played by lines, form, shape, shade, recurring proportionality, dynamic symmetry, unity and harmony. These principles can be seen in works of art dating back to the ancient Greeks and in naturally occurring objects and structures of beauty.2 Despite the ideals of an aesthetic smile being well defined in the literature,3 the work of Ker et al demonstrates that there is a range of variations from the ideal, which can be and are, accepted by laypersons as constituting an aesthetic smile.4 Despite variety in people's perception of beauty, the effects of time (ageing) on a dentition can be perceived as unattractive by laypersons that may, increasingly, look to our profession for help to restore what has been lost.
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