Innovation in odonto

March 20 is World Oral Health Day. An opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of protecting their teeth, and for the University of Montpellier to take stock of the latest innovations in teaching and care.

Dentistry is a discipline in its own right, with its own specialization. Dental care center close to the faculty of dentistry. In Montpellier, this specialty is fully committed to training, research and care, always striving for innovation, the avant-garde and excellence for its students and patients.
As a public facility, it is one of the only hospital dental centers in the eastern part of the region to receive all types of patients. patients with polypathologies. Extremely innovative, it is the only regional university hospital center of its kind to provide training on both university and hospital premises in digital prosthesis with 3D printing devices that allow you to design prostheses for patients in just 3 hours. It is also renowned for its award-winning "E-dent" telemedicine project, the first in the world to be developed in the field of dentistry. Last but not least, students receive state-of-the-art initial training in virtual simulators as soon as they join the faculty.

Dentistry, an innovative hospital and university component

For many years now, dentistry has been embracing digital innovation and robotics. The multidisciplinary team at the dental center has a complete digital prosthetic rehabilitation unit. This consists of acquiring images by optical scanning, rather than with impressions, in order to design a fixed prosthesis that will be integrated into the patient's oral cavity to the nearest thousandth of a millimetre, in less than 3 hours.
A medical unit, unique in France, has been set up with state-of-the-art digital machines for these innovative treatments. The team that makes up this unit is the most advanced in France in terms of expertise, research and development in digital prosthetics. It also acts as a point of reference for numerous industrial partners in this field, enabling them to evaluate their latest advances, thanks to the unstinting commitment of its teams on a daily basis.
The team is led by two professors of prosthetics, Prof. Jacques MARGERIT and Prof. Sylvie MONTAL, supported by the department coordinator, Prof. Jean VALCARCEL, and supervised by Dr. Michel FAGES and Dr. Jean-Cédric DURAND.
This dynamic begins with its own DU and a unique digital platform: "Lyra". It brings together a multitude of machines and digital technologies concentrated on a single site to enable the most advanced training possible for students and practitioners. It is supported by the Dean, Prof. Philippe Gibert, who is leading theUFR odontologie towards the odontology of the future.

A center of excellence in telemedicine

Dental telemedicine in Montpellier benefits from advanced expertise. The E-dent project, spearheaded by Dr Nicolas Giraudeau (winner of the e-health trophy at the États généraux de l'innovation organisationnelle en santé), is a major step forward in this field. the world's most advanced telesurgery project. It is set to spearhead remote tele-expertise between the Care Center and the private sector. More and more hospital departments are using it, including the UCSA and patients in detention at the Villeneuve les Maguelone unit.
Teams of odontologists involved in clinical research have enabled the care center to become a reference unit for rare oral and dental diseases, "O-Rares", under the impetus of Prof. Frédéric Cuisinier and Dr. Pierre-Yves Collard Dutilleul.
Other teams, under the aegis of Prof. Dominique Deville de Périère and Prof. Christophe Hirtz, work in synergy within the proteomics platform of Prof. Sylvain Lehmann's laboratory, to develop new salivary diagnostic tools useful in general health, with results that currently make it an expert team in this field at international level.

State-of-the-art initial training with... virtual simulators!

In 2017, the restoration of two TP rooms to benefit the training of future surgeons was financed. In September 2018, two haptic simulators - the first in France - will be inaugurated. Montpellier's UFR odontologie will thus enter the era of "virtual" teaching, enabling students to carry out the full range of therapeutic treatments and experience patients' sensations and reactions before actually operating on them.

A public service mission

For many years, our dentistry teams have been involved in innovative consultations and treatments to improve the oral health of populations in need of special care: patients with disabilities or hospitalized patients with polypathologies. In these cases, oral health contributes to the diagnosis and prognosis of their general health. The medical periodontics consultation initiated and run by Dr. Orti and Dr. Mertens welcomes patients from the metabolic medicine, cardiology, gynecology-obstetrics and rheumatology departments, who suffer from periodontal disease interfering with their general pathology.
Equally specialized consultations at the care center, in both pediatric dentistry and maxillofacial surgery, welcome hospitalized patients requiring specific approaches essential in cardiology, oncology or pediatrics.
Every day, the team at theUCAA (Unité de chirurgie et d'anesthésie ambulatoires - Ambulatory Surgery and Anesthesia Unit) provides a unique national service, every day of the week, for many patients with specific needs for full oral rehabilitation, with no concessions on quality or durability. It is one of the only facilities in France to offer this type of care.
" All these dynamics and innovations are little-known assets, patiently put in place by the day-to-day work of the PUPH, MCUPH managers and players, regardless of status. Indeed, they are all committed to our three missions of teaching, care and research, each with their own subspecialties and specificities. For all of them, it's a daily commitment, to ensure the best possible training for students, the best possible public oral health service, which we owe to our fellow citizens of all ages and medical conditions, and which, for the CHU as for the University, must be a force to be reckoned with and reckoned with! Concluded Professors Philippe Gibert and Jean Valcarcel.