Dentech Digest Issue #20: Measuring the Move, A Microscope in Your Glasses, and Rewiring Oral Bacteria
Your Weekly Roundup of Dental AI + Tech Moves.
Happy Friday!!
I recently sat down with Dr. Emily Stein, PHD and I didn’t expect her to suggest putting bacteria on a keto diet, but that’s exactly what she’s done. Her journey began with a simple but profound question: what if instead of killing oral bacteria, we teach them to behave differently?
The answer became PROtektin, a patented formulation that blocks microbes from consuming carbohydrates while encouraging them to metabolize salivary amino acids instead. This metabolic shift raises oral pH, supports nitric oxide production, and transforms the mouth from anaerobic to aerobic environment, creating conditions where gum health can thrive.
The results speak for themselves. In a six-week, NIH-funded trial of 65+ adults with mild to moderate gingivitis, PROtektin lozenges reduced red complex pathogens by 89-91%, resolved 2+ bleeding sites on probing, and lowered plaque index scores by 25%. Meanwhile, the placebo group showed only 40% improvement in bleeding and had worsening pocket depths.
PROtektin isn’t just another oral care product, it’s a platform for rethinking how we protect teeth. From lozenges and water additives to traditional dental products, it can even be embedded in aligners, bands, and o-ties, turning everyday orthodontic devices into continuous microbiome-balancing tools that fight acid buildup, plaque, and white spot lesions.
Its impact goes beyond convenience. PROtektin makes oral care easier for high-risk and elderly patients, opens preventive care to underserved communities, and strengthens the connection between oral health and overall wellness from the heart to the immune system.
This is the next era of dentistry: integrative, preventive, and regenerative care that doesn’t wage war against microbes but instead teaches them to protect us. It’s not about elimination, it’s about education at the microbial level.
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🕶️ The Microscope in Your Glasses
X-Biomedical launched GoScope™, a portable AR and AI-enabled microscope that combines voice-controlled zoom, video capture, and real-time telestration. The headset delivers heads-up 3D visualization, flexible scope positioning, and live annotation capabilities, allowing clinicians to maintain ergonomic posture while performing precise procedures.
GoScope addresses dentistry’s ergonomic crisis by reducing musculoskeletal strain from traditional microscopes. Its portability and AR features make microscope-level precision accessible to dental practices, enhance patient communication through live visualization, and transform dental education with real-time telestration.
🦷 The Smart Chairside Experience
Align Technology has unveiled major upgrades to its iTero Digital Solution ecosystem designed to elevate the chariside experience and close the gap between scanning and treatment. The new tools combine real-time visualization, design, and communication features into one connected workflow.
These updates include:
Align Oral Health Suite: Interactive tools that compare scans, track oral health changes, and share annotated reports instantly with patients.
Invisalign Outcome Simulator Pro: Real-time treatment simulations that help patients visualize results.
iTero Design Suite: Expanded compatibility with 3D printers and mills for chairside design of models, splints, and restorations, enabling true single-visit dentistry.
This shifts iTero from a scanning tools to a patient engagement engine. It transforms treatment planning into a visual, interactive experience that helps patients understand their options and say yes faster. Practices using the Oral Health Suite daily have already seen a 19% increase in production, proving that smarter workflows can directly impact the bottom line.
📏 Measuring the Move
Robert Hayman (creator of Zoom! Whitening) and Perimetrics have secured the first FDA clearance for InnerView, a diagnostic system that objectively measures internal tooth mobility using Quantitative Percussion Diagnostics (QPD). The device detects microscopic movement in teeth and restorations in real time, offering a new way to identify cracks, loosened restorations, and early structural instability.
InnerView could finally solve one of dentistry’s toughest challenges: diagnosing cracked or unstable teeth. Traditional methods such as patient symptoms, bite tests, and clinician intuition are subjective. By quantifying the movement, InnerView turns guesswork into data-driven decisions. It may also help monitor implants and catch early osseointegration issues. While it doesn’t directly diagnose cracks, it sets a new standard for measurable structural assessment, giving early adopters an edge in patient care.
🤝 New Partnerships
Henry Schein One is partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to infuse Dentrix, Dentrix Ascend, and Dentally with generative-AI capabilities. Built on AWS’s infrastructure, this rollout is designed for global reach and compliance expanding across the U.S., U.K., and E.U. This shows that AI is no longer optional, it’s becoming the baseline for practice management systems.
Smartee Dent-Technology and Straumann Group are forging a strategic alliance, combining Straumann’s vast distribution network with Smartee’s advanced clear aligner technology and manufacturing prowess. This may prove to be a move by Straumann to challenge the current aligner market, likely leading to more competitive pricing and the introduction of Smartee aligners to Western markets.
Curve partnered with DentalHQ to fully integrate their patient membership platform into its ecosystem, enabling customers to seamlessly manage in-house subscription plans. This integration empowers dental practices to counter declining insurance reimbursements by easily establishing stable, recurring, patient-centered revenue streams directly within their PMS.
ClearCorrect is integrating a streamlined version of DentalMonitoring’s AI-powered remote patient monitoring solution directly into its doctor platform. ClearCorrect RemoteCare will leverage DM’s technology to simplify compliance and support comprehensive patient management from the start of treatment through remote follow-up.
VideaHealth and Henry Schein One have launched the Impact Panel to embed VideaHealth’s AI directly into Henry Schein One’s Dentrix and Dentrix Ascend dental software imaging workflows. This feature uses AI to instantly identify dental conditions and generate visualization tools, on-screen diagrams, and secure patient education materials for clinicians.
Sage Dental is moving 140+ practices to Denticon, unifying scheduling, billing, documentation, and imaging on a single cloud platform. In a collaborative rollout, Sage and Planet DDS are co-developing AI-driven tools, including an advanced estimation engine, that deliver accurate cost estimates, reduce billing surprises, and streamline operations.
📍Industry Insights
Archy raised $20M in Series B funding to bring its AI-powered platform to dental practices, consolidating multiple tools into one system that slashes admin time and boosts revenue.
Dandy launched the Vision intraoral scanner and DandyCart workstation, offering 45-second full-arch scans, AI-driven analysis, and seamless lab integration, all with no upfront cost under a lab-commitment model.
VideaHealth launched Voice Notes, an ambient AI scribe that turns chair‑side conversations into structured clinical notes in seconds, saving over 10 hours per provider per week and potentially adding up to $117K in annual revenue per dentist.
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👋 Until next time,
Natasha