I cannot help thinking that at the present time general practitioners in dentistry feel intimi-dated by the uncertainties of an ambiguous future, and are simply pursuing their lives and the operations of the clinic on a day by day basis.
There is no hope for the future of dentistry under conditions like this. It is not possible to formulate concerete plans for the future, which are so important to clinical operations, when there is no clear vision of the future.
For these reasons, I carried out analysis of the current situation with concrete numbers based on data that I personally collected, formulated predictions for the future of dentistry based on these data, and in accordance with these predictions established a plan for my own office and clinical operations.
Having obtained some degree of success, I venture to present my personal views and predictions. I would appreciate receiving the criticism and suggestions of my fellow doctors on these thoughts so that I might use these comments as a basis for future predictions.

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Usually the mechanical properties of dental alloys are determined from the values obtained through static tests of their tensile strength, hardness, etc. Generally, high tensile strength and ductility are preferred. However, when small stresses with in proportional limits are applied repeatedly (even though not amounting to destructive forces in static tests), they may cause rupture in the alloy or, at least, cause it to lose its original mechanical properties. This phenomenon is called metal fatigue. It is estimated that the intraoral stress loads received by dental restorations during mastication or during insertion and removal of appliances are repeated more than 3×10⁵ time/year. From this standpoint, it may be more appropriate to estimate the fracture strength of such dental alloys based on the fatigue properties of the restorative materials used for clasps, bars, and fixed bridges. For this reason, it is necessary to obtain data through fatigue tests on the fatigue strength and the fatigue endurance limits of dental alloys, and it is important to find a correlation between these data and the static data on tensile strengths and ductility obtained by tensile tests.

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An adequate amount of vertical and horizontal bone is a prerequisite for long-term stability of intraosseous implants. Consequently it is necessary to carry out measures to improve the bone condition in cases where there is a large bone loss or a deficiency in the absolute amount of bone. Appropriate measures include the GBR method which uses a covering membrane, as well as autogenous and bone substitute implants.
The authors presented basic research and clinical cases, and carried out investigations into these methods. At the present time it seems the GBR method is best for obtaining osseointegra-tion of implants.

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