High-risk medicines

The issue of pain medication prescription within the context of paediatric dentistry is of vital significance, with a collaborative research team representing the American Dental Association publishing an authoritative report on the matter in 2023. Furthering inquiry into the topic, the new study, which consists mainly of a large retrospective analysis of US insurance claims data, has shed light on how often dentists prescribe high-risk medicines to children and what happens afterwards.

Born in Philadelphia in the US to a family with strong dental roots, Dr Nevins studied dentistry at Temple University, earning his DDS from its School of Dentistry. He completed postgraduate periodontal training at Boston University before entering private practice in Massachusetts, where he maintained a practice limited to periodontics and implant dentistry for many years. Dr Nevins was among the early adopters of implant dentistry, placing his first dental implant in 1966 while still a resident.

“We want to better understand the diversity of bacteria in the mouth and specifically cultivate species that were previously only known by their gene sequence,” Prof. Ali Al-Ahmad, project leader and laboratory head of the Department of Operative Dentistry and Periodontology at the Medical Centre—University of Freiburg, said in a press release. Earlier this year, the researchers identified a new bacterial species, Dentiradicibacter hellwigii, in a human root canal.