Applications of telemedicine in dentistry. Review of literature

Abstract

The aim of this study was to review the different papers and articles that discuss applications of telemedicine in the dental field. This study is qualitative narrative review of literature Research of teledentistry literature was conducted in order to identify the relevant articles. The research focused on the electronic database of US National library of medicine .National institute of health (Pubmed.gov) and Journal of telemedicine and telecare. Specific keywords that were used in the research: “Teledentistry”, “Telemedicine and dentistry” and “Dental videoconferencing” and others corresponding words. 294 Papers have been identified. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria 53 articles have been found relevant to be selected for our study which represents small percent compared to the literature discussing telemedicine applications in general. The selected articles were categorized according to area of intervention in the different dental specialties in addition to category includes articles that discuss the use of telemedicine in general without focusing on specific dental specialty and another category that includes applying telemedicine in the field of dental education. Analysis and study of these articles revealed that more number of articles focused on incorporating teledentistry into specific dental specialties and aspects while incorporating teledentistry within some other dental specialties had been relatively neglected. The majority of articles included in the review discussed applying teleconsultation systems that allow communication between general dental practitioners and specialists. This can be attributed to the current availability and relatively low costs of the basic infrastructure required for such teleconsultation systems. However, more researches are required to study using teledentistry in the operative or surgical phase in dentistry. The shortage of this kind of researches can be attributed to the complicated, advanced and expensive technology required for such teledentistry systems for example the robotic surgery. Despite this small number of articles discussing using teledentistry in the different dental fields, results of the majority of the articles relevant to the review achieved positive outcome after implementation of the teledentistry systems. These positive outcomes in addition to the continuous advancement of information technology makes us expect increasing in the number of studies that investigate incorporating teledentistry in dentistry in the future and the expand of these applications into more dental specialties as well as the different aspects of dentistry.