Within a decade, the day may come when people will be spared the pain of having bad teeth extracted or cavities drilled. In fact, bad teeth may become a thing of the past.
This rosy prediction is being made by a group of dentists seeking to change the focus of dentistry from cure to prevention.
Masato Kageyama, a dentist in Nakano Ward, Tokyo, has been practicing a treatment called 3DS for the last two years. Short for "dental drug delivery system," 3DS consists of several steps, the first of which is to analyze a patient's susceptibility to tooth decay by measuring the level of streptococcus mutans, the principal culprit among bacteria that cause cavities.