• DHSRU Home
• School of Dentistry
• College of Medicine, Dentistry, & Nursing

• Home
• About Us
• Research
• Publications
• Sponsors & Partners
• Useful links

• Cariology
• Craniofacial
• Research at DHSRU
• Oral Cancer
• Education
•   » Dental School Website

Dental Cariology Research in Dundee

This activity has long been a strength at Dundee and takes place across the Dental Health Services Research Unit, the Dental School and the Centre for Clinical Innovations (CCI).

The research activities include the following

• ICDAS (International Caries Detection & Assessment System); this methodology, developed by a charitable foundation co-chaired from Dundee, seeks to promote evidence-based practice in caries assessment and management. There are continuing international impacts of the system across research, practice, epidemiology, and education.
  
• Application of novel techniques for caries detection. This work builds on many years of basic science innovation which has been translated into clinical tools to address diagnostic challenges. Some technologies have been exploited commercially and developed into regulatory approved commercial products in both Europe and the US.
  
• The “FiCTION” (Filling Children’s Teeth: Indicated Or Not) trial is a National Institute for Health Research funded, UK-wide, practice-based clinical trial investigating the most appropriate and effective way to manage caries in primary teeth. This study builds on the internationally recognised expertise of the Scottish Dental Practice-Based Research Network.
  
• A range of studies continue around the biological management of dental caries. These build on systematic reviews and primary care-led studies and are having an increasing clinical impact, both nationally and internationally.
  
• Leading the International Association for Dental Research (IADR) - Global Oral Health Inequalities Research Agenda (GOHIRA) Dental Caries Task Group (one of two led from Dundee). This initiative seeks to focus on addressing inequalities in oral health between and within countries by overcoming failures to get research findings into policy and practice.
  
• Lead role in the FDI – World Dental Federation’s Global Caries Initiative. Working through National Dental Associations, the FDI vision is to improve oral health through the implementation of a new paradigm for managing dental caries and its consequences, one that is based on our current knowledge of the disease process and its prevention.
  
• The Alliance for a Cavity Free Future (ACFF), seeks to implement research findings by promoting the take up of evidence based clinical interventions on a global basis using web-based resources and facilitating regional public health and clinical actions.
  
• Other developing activities include:
  
  • Collaboration between CCI and a number of Scottish Universities on new methods of caries remineralization.
    
  • Collaboration with a group from the College of Life Sciences into the effects of dental treatment on the caries biofilm using meta-genomics technologies.
    
  • A range of studies on erosion and tooth surface loss.