Autonomous robot performs dental treatment eight times faster than a dentist
Perceptive has developed a robot that can treat teeth autonomously. The robot can prepare teeth for crowning in 15 minutes.
The Perceptive robot performs dental treatment.
(Image: Perceptive (Screenshot))
For the first time, a medical robot has independently performed an operation on a human patient, acting around eight times faster than a dentist could. The robot prepared a tooth for a crowning. The preparatory measures and the procedure took just 15 minutes.
A robotic system from Boston-based company Perceptive was used for the procedure. Using a portable 3D scanner that works with optical coherence tomography (OTS), a 3D model of the entire oral cavity including teeth, gums and nerve courses under the surface was created at the beginning. The procedure is also said to be particularly gentle on people, as the technology uses light beams to create a volumetric model of the oral cavity. Potentially harmful X-rays are therefore no longer required. OCT should also be able to reliably detect and image cavities. The accuracy of automatic detection is said to be around 90 percent.
Based on the scans of the oral cavity, the robot begins to prepare the tooth for the crown. To do this, it is equipped with a CNC drill and a rinsing and suction function - tools that are usually operated manually by a dentist and an assistant. This is made possible by artificial intelligence (AI), which is used to control the medical robot. It has trained Perceptive in such a way that such an intervention is still possible even if the patient moves during treatment. According to Perceptive, corresponding tests on test subjects have all been successful.
Dental treatment in record-breaking time
The procedure took 15 minutes. Dentists usually schedule 60 minutes in two sessions for this type of treatment. Such a procedure is stressful for the patient because they have to keep their mouth open for an extended period of time. The use of the robot, on the other hand, makes patients more comfortable. Diagnosis via OTC is also more effective because the imaging procedure provides more details in advance. The shorter treatment time thanks to the robot also makes it possible to treat more patients in less time.
The robot has not yet been approved in the USA by the responsible health authority, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is also still unclear when Perceptive plans to launch the robot on the market.
(olb)