Book review

The developing dentition and craniofacial skeleton, the need to devise treatment plans which are patient-orientated, realistic and deliverable within the constraints of recourses, plus the requirement of dentists to take account of new technologies and evidence for treatment outcomes, makes effective management of developmental hypodontia challenging. This book presents the subject in the light of these important aspects. The reader should not expect to find a recipe book on the management of hypodontia, for in all likelihood that could not, and should not, exist.

The scarcity of textbooks covering comprehensive management of hypodontia is not surprising given the need for close multidisciplinary working and development of experience over an extended period of time; the authors amply fulfil this requirement.

They all have association with a long-established specialist clinic dedicated to multidisciplinary management of patients with hypodontia, so are ideally placed to offer their expertise to this subject.

The book is divided into sections based on features of hypodontia followed by a final part describing management at age-related stages of the dentition based on well explained principles and the evidence base, such as it is. The book structure and multidisciplinary authorship make it inevitable that the text contains repetition, and the introduction explains this feature as helpful to the reader to avoid needless movement between sections when reading. However, at times the repetition does seem a little cumbersome. There is appropriate emphasis placed on one of the commonest problems: the missing maxillary lateral incisor.