Dental Tribune UK Edition, October 4-10, 2010, No.24 Vol.4

T he luxurious Pennyhill Park Hotel and Spa in Sur- rey was the setting for a daylong symposium to mark the UK launch of Septodont’s new product, Biodentine last month. More than 80 key opinion leaders and leading dentists from across the country came to hear how this cutting edge tech- nology, which, for the first time, offers a bioactive substitute to dentine, could revolutionise their practice. The symposium began with general manager of Septodont Holding Olivier Schillier intro- ducing Biodentine as the prod- uct of a love story and a 12-year development into a dentine replacement set to change the face of restorative dentistry. Prof Trevor Burke was next to the podium. Acting as chair for the day’s proceedings, Trevor set the scene by discussing the change in thinking in caries manage- ment towards a more minimally invasive procedure where only a percentage of the caries is re- moved then a suitable material is used to seal in the remaining caries. He posed a question for delegates to ponder as they lis- tened to the day’s speakers: Can one solution be a substitute for all restorative materials, ie MTA and amalgam? Next to speak was Prof Gilles Richard, who is R&D manager for Septodont France and the developer of Biodentine. Prof Richard’s presentation, From Scientific Concept to Clinical Use, detailed the origins of Bi- odentine and the journey it took from conception to launch as a commercial product. He explained that the goal to developing the product was to be able to treat many pathologies with a single solution. Bioden- tine began as an idea in 1998 when a dentist and a material developer contacted Septodont with the concept. Prof Richard then detailed the next 12 years as a whirlwind of development, testing and industrialisation before the present situation of launching Biodentine to market. Prof Richard then went into detail about the composi- tion of the product. He explained that it was an active biosilicate technology composed of tri- calcium silicate. This is mixed with water to create the correct consistency. Following him was Prof Pierre Colon, Head of Endo- dontics at Paris University. In his presentation Biodentine: a material worth discovering, he reviewed some of the clini- cal lab-based studies that had been undertaken. I must ad- mit to his presentation being something akin to an advanced chemistry lesson for me with the amount of chemical for- mulae he showed, but his aim was to explain how Biodentine worked at a chemical level. He described the chemical reac- tion between the powder and Biodentine: a typical love story Dental Tribune looks at the UK launch of Biodentine, Septodont’s new dental ma- terial, which took the form of a one-day symposium ‘Biodentine began as an idea in 1998 when a den- tist and a material developer contacted Septodont’ October 4-10, 201010 Event Review United Kingdom Edition