Comment (May) – perhaps the thumb technique wasn't so bad!

I would like, if I may, to add some personal comments to the excellent editorial on the ‘thumb technique’ in the May issue.

The late and inspirational Bernie Kieser is mentioned and I, no doubt along with all of his past students, remember Bernie quoting these papers purporting to show how restoration overhangs, and other so-called plaque retention factors, led to worsening periodontal conditions, and then showing us radiographs of such overhangs with no bone loss, while elsewhere in the same mouth there was bone loss around teeth which had no restorations! As Bernie used to say, a plaque retention factor is only a problem if the patient can't clean it; it's not a plaque retention factor if there is no plaque on it. As you rightly point out, in this respect a lump of calculus is no different from an amalgam overhang but, of course, Bernie was always misquoted in this respect, as you also mention.