Do you see?

Dentistry today has attained a level of technical achievement that would surely seem fantastical to the backstreet barbers of only a century and a half ago that were tasked with wrenching out painful teeth from wincing clients. The treatment of dental disease now has a wealth of science and research behind it and a growing spectrum of advanced technology ahead of it, enabling once complex procedures to be performed with greater efficacy than ever before.

Yet there is always room for improvement, inviting new ideas and refining existing ones. Dental professionals can only treat the problems that they can diagnose and this is often the biggest hurdle. Diagnosis of disease such as caries is not always straightforward, frequently requiring an exacerbation of the signs and symptoms before a clear detection is possible. Clearly, this does not serve the patients well, who would obviously benefit from early detection and intervention. Diagnosis is also compounded by the anatomy of the mouth, full of dark corners, moist vestibules and pockets that mirrors find difficult to reach. And when they are within sight, the inevitable distance between the operator's head and the locus of disease ferments only frustration at not having a close enough view.