Problems and Prospects of Maxillofacial Prosthetics at the Medical University Hospital

Abstract

Although maxillofacial prosthetic treatment aims to restore functional disorders in mastication, the functional disorders and their associated severity, as well as the defect shapes, differ due to the wide variety of diseases. This review describes the tasks under the theme “Problems and prospects of maxillofacial prosthetics at medical universities.” First, in our hospital, the surgeon is a medical doctor and the maxillofacial prosthodontist is a dentist. To share important information that is necessary for treatment, meetings should be held regularly; however, this is not currently the situation. Second, dentists who are not accustomed to prosthodontics must perform maxillofacial prosthetic treatments. Third, there are also locational issues, i.e., it is not easy to refer patients to another maxillofacial prosthodontist. Finally, further dental education is needed to accomplish multidisciplinary collaboration in maxillofacial prosthetics. We intend to devise new strategies to solve these problems.