Properties of Dental Materials for the Next 20 Years: a Delphi Survey

The aims of this study were to forecast trends in restorative dentistry for the next 20 years and to determine treatment goals and corresponding material properties. Methods: A panel of 4 experts identified 8 key questions, which were sent to international experts in restorative and preventive dentistry using the DELPHI method. The survey was administered as internet questionnaire by TNS EMNID (Germany). A first round with 15 international experts resulted in a semantic precision of the questions and the completion of the items for two additional rounds. In the second round 105 experts from 35 countries rated the items developed in round 1 of the 8 questions by using a Likert scale. In round 3 the same experts received the results of round 2 and were asked to agree or disagree to the results by re-voting all questions. Among the 8 questions the following 2 questions were of interest regarding this report: Q1) „What will be the future role of restorative treatment?“, and Q6) „What will be the key qualities for clinical success of restorations?“. For both questions the experts were asked to evaluate the importance and the feasibility for each item of the questionnaire. Results and Conclusions: As expected all items developed by the experts in round 1 were regarded to be important expressed by the fact that the mean values for the future importance of items ranged between 2.8 and 3.8 (Likert scale 1-4). The most important items for Q1 were „preservation of existing enamel and dentin tissue“, „prevention of secondary caries“, „maintenance of the pulp vitality“ and „improvement of aesthetics“, and for Q6 „optimization of adhesion“, „biocompatibility“, and „minimization of technical sensitivity“. „Prevention of secondary caries“ was rated as having a high potential (potential = (importance + (Importance-Feasibility)) for future restorative treatment in general and key property of future dental materials. The survey and particularly the procedure support of the internet based survey was sponsored by DENTSPLY DETREY, Germany