According to the South China Morning Post, there is a major shortage of dentists in the country – about 400 million people in China are in need of dental implants, but each year, only about one million people receive them. Sometimes when people can’t get dental surgery, they’ll visit individuals who are not qualified to perform dental work, causing themselves more harm. Dental surgery is hard enough, given the small, often hard to see space that dentists have to work in, without having to worry about not having enough dentists.
We often see 3D printing technology combined with dental applications, and using robots in surgery is not a new concept either – we’ve seen robots that are designed to perform hysterectomies and even brain surgery on epilepsy patients, but this is the first robot dentist I’ve ever heard of. This is also the first completely autonomous robotic dental implant surgery, and the researchers who developed the robot hope it will be able to help with the shortage of qualified dentists in China, as well as cut back on problems caused by human error.As a person who is already terrified of going to the dentist, the idea of a robot wielding the instruments sounds like my absolute worst nightmare. But, I do believe anything that can safely cut down on human error during surgery is a good idea, so I should probably get used to robots running operations.
The implant surgery took place on September 16 in Xian, Shaanxi, and while human medical staff were present during the procedure, they did not participate during the operation – they had completed their work prior to the surgery. Dentists had previously fitted the robot’s position orientation equipment to the patient’s mouth, and programmed it to move to the right position for the surgery. They also determined the angle, depth, and precise movements that the robot would need to adhere to in order to fit the two 3D printed teeth inside a cavity in the patient’s mouth.
Experts said that the implants reached the required standard for the type of operation, fitting to within a margin of error of 0.2 to 0.3 mm. If you’re interested in seeing the robot in action, you can take a look at the video below, though I will warn you that if you don’t like close-ups of spinning dental drills, it’s best to sit this one out.
What do you think about the idea of a robot dentist – would you ever volunteer for a surgery like this? Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com, or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.