All articles starting with D
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Dental Pins
Dental pins are small cylindrical pieces of metal or fiber-reinforced material drilled into dentin to retain a restoration or core buildup when little tooth structure remains.
Dental plaque
Dental plaque: a multispecies microbial biofilm on tooth surfaces, first observed by van Leeuwenhoek in 1684; primary cause of caries, gingivitis, and periodontitis; hardens into calculus if not removed daily.
Dental plaque index
A dental plaque index is a clinical scoring method that quantifies plaque on tooth surfaces, used to assess oral hygiene, monitor treatment, and motivate patients.
Dental Polishing
Dental polishing (MeSH D003775) creates a smooth, glossy surface finish on teeth, dentures, or amalgam restorations using abrasives, rubber cups, or air-polishing powders such as glycine and erythritol; evidence for routine polishing alone is limited.
Dental prophylaxis
Dental prophylaxis is a routine professional tooth cleaning, a scale and polish that removes plaque, tartar, and stain from teeth, distinct from surgical root planing.
Dental Prosthesis
Dental prosthesis: any appliance replacing missing teeth and associated structures, spanning fixed bridges, removable dentures, and implant-supported restorations; distinguished by support, retention, survival, and bone-loss outcomes.
Dental Prosthesis Design
Dental prosthesis design, the planning of crowns, bridges, dentures, and implant-supported prostheses, now spans conventional, CAD/CAM, additive, and AI-assisted workflows, with fit accuracy and biomechanics as key outcomes.
Dental Prosthesis Repair
Dental prosthesis repair (MeSH D017269) is reuniting or replacing a broken or worn dental prosthesis or part, such as a denture clasp, tooth, or flange; a minimally invasive alternative to full replacement with similar survival outcomes.
Dental Prosthesis Retention
Dental prosthesis retention (MeSH D017268) is holding a dental prosthesis in place by design, devices, or adhesives; covers denture physics, implant attachments (bar, ball, magnet, Locator), and denture adhesives.
Dental Pulp Devitalization
Dental pulp devitalization is the deliberate destruction of tooth pulp vitality, historically with arsenic or paraformaldehyde pastes, now largely replaced by anesthesia and vital pulp therapy with calcium silicate cements.
Dental pulp stem cell
Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs), with deciduous-tooth counterpart SHED, are mesenchymal stem cell-like cells first isolated from adult human third molar pulp in 2000 by Gronthos; neural crest origin, STRO-1/CD73/CD146 markers, dentin-pulp regeneration, and periodontitis clinical trials distinguish them.
Dental Pulp Test
Dental pulp test: clinical tests assessing tooth pulp health. Sensibility tests (cold, heat, electric) stimulate nerves; vitality tests (pulse oximetry, laser Doppler flowmetry) measure blood flow. Pooled accuracy figures distinguish all five methods.
Dental radiography
Dental radiography is X-ray imaging of the teeth and jaws: intraoral bitewings, periapical films, and panoramic radiographs each cover a defined range, and cone-beam CT adds three-dimensional imaging for selected tasks.
Dental restoration
Dental restoration: repairing tooth structure with direct fillings (amalgam, composite, glass ionomer) or indirect laboratory/CAD-CAM prostheses (gold, zirconia, lithium disilicate, PFM), distinguished by fabrication location, materials, and longevity.
Dental Restoration Repair
Dental restoration repair, or reparative dentistry, fixes localized defects in existing fillings and crowns by adding composite rather than replacing the whole restoration, preserving tooth structure with comparable longevity.
Dental Restoration Wear
Dental Restoration Wear, a MeSH-indexed clinical category, covers loss of restorative material and opposing tooth structure from occlusal function; measured by 3D profilometry, quantified preferably as volume loss, and worsened by bruxism and hard ceramics.
Dental Soldering
Dental soldering joins metal parts of dental appliances, such as bridges and orthodontic bands, using a lower-melting filler alloy; technically brazing above 425°C, now often replaced by laser welding.
Dental Stress Analysis
Dental Stress Analysis is a dental research field, indexed by the National Library of Medicine since 1972, that measures how forces distribute through teeth, bone, implants, and restorations.
Dental Technology
Dental technology: the field of dentistry for designing and constructing dental appliances (dental prosthetics, dentures, crowns), also called Technology, Dental; spans dental laboratory craft, CAD/CAM, and intraoral scanning.
Dental Tissue Conditioning
Dental tissue conditioning is a prosthodontic procedure that uses a temporary soft liner on a denture to let inflamed oral tissues heal before new dentures are made.
Dentalium (genus)
Dentalium (tusk shells) is a genus of scaphopod mollusks, type genus of Dentaliidae, named by Linnaeus in 1758. Its tapered, open-ended shells gave the class its common name; strictly Indo-Pacific today, with many former species moved to Antalis.
DentalMonitoring
DentalMonitoring is a Paris-based French healthtech company, founded in 2014, whose AI-powered software lets orthodontists monitor treatment through weekly patient scans at home; it raised $100 million in 2026.
Dentate gyrus
Dentate gyrus, hippocampal subregion and input channel of the hippocampal formation; three-layered cortex with granule cells, mossy fibers to CA3, adult neurogenesis in the subgranular zone, and a debated role in pattern separation.
Dentatorubral pallidoluysian atrophy
Dentatorubral pallidoluysian atrophy (DRPLA, Naito-Oyanagi disease, Haw River syndrome) is a rare autosomal dominant CAG repeat expansion disorder of the ATN1 gene causing ataxia, myoclonus, epilepsy, chorea, and dementia, most common in Japan.
Dentex dentex
Dentex dentex, the common dentex (denté commun, dentón), is a large Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic seabream (Sparidae) with prominent canines, IUCN Vulnerable from overfishing, and a trial-scale aquaculture species.
Dentin
Dentin (dentine) is the mineralized connective tissue forming the bulk of a tooth beneath enamel and cementum, made by odontoblasts, 65-70% mineral with type I collagen, tubular, sensitive, and among the earliest vertebrate hard tissues.
Dentin dysplasia
Dentin dysplasia (DD), hereditary dentin defect with abnormal dentin and root development; types I and II, autosomal dominant, DSPP-related (DD-II), prevalence about 1/100,000 for DD-I.
Dentinogenesis imperfecta
Dentinogenesis imperfecta (DGI, opalescent teeth) is an autosomal dominant hereditary dentin defect, prevalence 1/6,000-1/8,000, caused by DSPP mutations; Shields types I-III, with DGI-I syndromic with osteogenesis imperfecta.
Dentist
Dentist: licensed oral health professional diagnosing and treating teeth, mouth, and jaw conditions. US DDS/DMD 8-year pathway, UK 5-year degree; 201,117 US dentists in 2020; median wage $176,110 (2025).
Dentistry
Dentistry, also called dental medicine, is the medical field covering the oral cavity, teeth, and maxillofacial structures; it treats caries, periodontal disease, and oral cancer, has 12 recognized US specialties, and addresses a 3.7-billion-person global disease burden.