It's been another extraordinary year for the Spear Review, the publishing platform of Spear, thanks to our insightful and passionate contributors and key educators. We'd also like to sincerely thank you—our valued readers. As always, we appreciate your insightful comments and thought-provoking questions. Below are the most read 6-10 articles of 2013. Stay tuned for our top five ...

 

10. Evaluating 'At Risk' Occlusions
By Gary DeWood
One of the most critical components of the examination is evaluating for "at risk" occlusal conditions. These risks can take even the most seemingly simple operative dentistry into the rabbit hole and have the patient blaming everything they are now experiencing on the dentist. Read more >>

 

9. What Does Current Research Say About Pain-Free Injection Techniques?
By Vivek Mehta
The following is a review of available research on effective pain reducing tactics during local anesthesia injections. Some of these are commonly used while others are not. Incorporating many or most of these ideas within our technique will take us one step closer to "zero pain" local anesthesia injections. Read more >>

 

8. Quick and Easy Single Tooth Provisionals
By Jeff Lineberry
When I first began making provisionals in dental school, we often took an alginate prior to preparing a tooth for an indirect restoration, especially if there was no missing part of the tooth. When I got out of school, I started using a pre-operative alginate, poured it in Snap Stone and fabricated a silicone matrix. Read more >>

 

7. The Value of Stick Bites
By Steve Ratcliff
The stick "bite" is a quick and easy reference for your ceramist. It's not really a bite registration; rather, it is a useful tool for the technician to have a visual reference to the esthetic plane or incisal edge position of the upper centrals. To record this position, simply dry the lower anteriors and inject rigid bite registration paste from canine to canine. Read more >>

 

6. Four Guidelines for Direct Resin
By Frank Spear
There can be confusion for clinicians when trying to decide if direct composite is the adequate solution to treat patients, or if dong an indirect restoration will ensure the best chances of a predictable result. Especially in higher risk posterior areas, when we think about direct versus indirect restorations we want to pay very close attention to what the literature suggests will be a predictable result. Read more >>

Read the top articles of 2013 1-5.

Bonus: Top Practice Growth Article

One Simple Way to Get Patients to Invite Others
By Imtiaz Manji
Ask. Yes, it really is that simple. If you're like most dentists, you probably have a lot of potential ambassadors who are walking out the door keeping their rave reviews to themselves. These same people would readily promise to mention you to their friend—if only someone asked them. Read more >>