Treating tooth wear in primary dental care

If general dental practitioner readers can remember back to the halcyon (even if we did not think that it was thus at the time!) pre-pandemic times, they will be aware that the incidence of tooth wear (TW) is their patients was increasing, the volume of the problem being confirmed by a 2018 review of having a prevalence globally of 20% to 45%, and erosion in permanent teeth in the UK being between 12% and 100% depending upon which study was cited.1. It may therefore be considered essential that practitioners are equipped with the knowledge and expertise to treat patients whose dentitions are so affected. Why? Because, in the main, secondary care services were already working at full capacity before the pandemic, and the situation has not, to date, improved because of reduced capacity as a result of AGPs and the need to treat a backlog of emergency dental care plus other factors such as staff redeployment since services recommenced. Secondly, another reason - referral of a patient to another clinic might mean that the patient doesn't return to the practitioner's care.