The Outlook for Dental Laser Use on Oral Hard Tissue Diseases

Abstract

Presently, various lasers are used in many dental fields, including operative dentistry, endodontic care, periodontal care, oral surgery, prosthetics, implants, esthetic dentistry, and preventive dentistry. Removal of caries and dental scaling associated with periodontal surgical procedures began to be covered by national health insurance and have become more widespread in Japan. Laser ablasion of teeth is more time-consuming than rotary cutting but has many advantages: pain control and less gingival bleeding, and it is more convenient for the treatment of subgingival caries. In the future, it will also be important to develop materials and procedures that lead to more effective laser use. For example, selective removal of the infected layer of carious dentin by a laser using a caries-detector dye that specifically absorbs laser energy is expected to be effective, along with the above advantages, for the treatment of root caries, which is difficult to treat by conventional procedures. In addition, the coating of enamel with a hydroxyapatite film using a laser is considered to be a promising technique for the management of tooth wear such as abrasion, especially in the future aging society. In this paper, prospects for the application of lasers to various hard tissue disorders of the tooth are discussed.