Dental Materials' Needs for the Management of Caries Risk Groups: 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 for caries risk groups. 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 4 questions were of interest regarding this report: Q4) „Which additional goals compared to traditional restorative therapy should be fulfilled by future materials or technologies to improve the success rate in risk groups?“, Q5) „ Which properties of a special restorative material are needed to achieve these goals?“ Q7) „Which key properties of restorative materials or devices will be required for the treatment of elderly, special care patients or children?“, and Q8) „Do you agree to the following statements?“. Results and Conclusions: Elderly and migrants were identified as increasing caries risk groups especially in industrial countries. The requirements of restoratives for elderly and children should have similar properties worldwide like ease of use, optimized adhesion and biocompatibility; however, for some properties like wear behaviour, erosive stability or affordability different rankings in different countries were found (p< 0.05). Children and older patients have similar requirements of restorative materials worldwide due to an increased caries risk. There is a need for restorative materials designed for these risk groups The survey and particularly the procedure support of the Internet based survey was sponsored by DENTSPLY DETREY, Germany