The Journal of the American Dental Association
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A major earthquake struck Sichuan province, China, on May 12, 2008, and the authors were involved in the medical response to the disaster in Jiangyou City, an area hard-hit by the quake. In this article, they analyze data about the earthquake-related facial injuries and assess dentistry's role in treating them. ⋯ The dental team should play an important role in disaster response. Establishing oral and maxillofacial surgeon (OMS)/dentist reserves and active leagues that use OMSs' and general dentists' offices as bases can help improve disaster response.
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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, N.J., the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek, Mich., and The California Endowment, Los Angeles, collaborated in funding a five-year (2002-2007) national demonstration program (Pipeline, Profession & Practice: Community-Based Dental Education [Dental Pipeline]) to reduce dental care access disparities. Fifteen dental schools were selected to participate in the Dental Pipeline program. The goals were to have senior students spend more time in community sites providing care to underserved patients; to prepare students to treat diverse, low-income patients; and to increase enrollment of underrepresented minority (URM) students. ⋯ On average, the participating dental schools were successful in meeting program goals.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
A comparison of a refrigerant and a topical anesthetic gel as preinjection anesthetics: a clinical evaluation.
The authors used a split-mouth design to determine the effectiveness of a refrigerant compared with that of a topical anesthetic gel in reducing the pain experienced during a posterior palatal anesthetic injection. ⋯ The potential benefits of using a refrigerant rather than a topical anesthetic gel are pain reduction, decreased application time, ease of application and avoidance of displeasing taste.
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The authors review the epidemiology, clinical features, pathophysiology, diagnosis, treatment, orofacial presentations and dental implications of trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias (TACs): cluster headache (CH), paroxysmal hemicrania (PH) and short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks with conjunctival injection and tearing (SUNCT). ⋯ Although the prevalence of TACs is small, it is important for dentists to recognize the disorder and refer patients to a neurologist. This will avoid the pitfall of administering unnecessary and inappropriate traditional dental treatments in an attempt to alleviate the neurovascular pain.