Digital Dentistry Series (DDS): Emerging technologies: NFTs in dentistry — Implants as use case

The increasing prevalence of dental diseases like tooth decay, periodontal diseases, and oral cancer due to the consumption of junk food, tobacco intake, and dental trauma is expected to propel the demand for the restorative dentistry market over the years.

Similarly, increasing the rate of dental caries is anticipated to boost the sales of dental restorative dentistry across regions, in turn supporting the growth of the market.

The Problem

Counterfeit medical devices and recalled medical implants pose a real threat to patient health and are emerging more and more in the $110 billion per year market. Counterfeit and recalled implants may cause infection, injury, produce fallacious test results, and possibly death.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that 8% of the medical devices in use are counterfeit, creating a branch to protect the public from such devices called the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT).

Recalls cost the medical device industry on average $2.5 — $5 billion per year according to a McKinsey & Company study. Thousands of patients, many of which may never be identified due to human data entry and retrieval errors, have defective devices implanted.

ChatGPT 3.0 — There have been incidents of dental implant counterfeits reported in the dental industry. However, the specific data on the prevalence of dental implant counterfeits may not be widely available or consistently documented. Dental implant counterfeits can pose serious risks to patient health and safety, as they may not meet quality standards and can lead to implant failure or complications during dental procedures.

Dental implant manufacturers and distributors implement measures such as holographic labels, QR codes, and serialization to authenticate their products and prevent counterfeiting.

NFTs as authentication and as a seal of quality

The use of NFTs for dental implants offers a robust and transparent solution for verifying the authenticity, quality, and traceability of dental implants. It enhances trust between manufacturers, dental professionals, and patients, ensuring that genuine and reliable dental implants are used in dental procedures.

A simple process flow for enabling NFTs for dental implants

Let’s explain the use case of NFTs for dental implants as a process map:

1. Manufacturer Registration:
Dental implant manufacturers register on a blockchain platform or marketplace that supports NFTs.
They provide necessary company information, certifications, and quality assurance details for verification.

2. Implant Creation and Tokenization:
The manufacturer designs and manufactures dental implants with unique identification codes.
Each dental implant is associated with specific metadata, including material composition, size, and manufacturing date.
Each dental implants can be uniquely tokenized as NFTs on the blockchain platform.

3. Smart Contracts and Quality Assurance:
Smart contracts are employed to ensure that each NFT representing a dental implant meets stringent quality standards.
The smart contracts verify the authenticity and compliance of the dental implants before they are minted as NFTs.

4. Validation by Dentists,Patients and labs
Manufacturers can educate Dentists and dental clinics, and patients to access the blockchain platform to explore available dental implant options.
They can examine the associated NFT details to validate the authenticity and quality of the dental implants.

5. Implant Selection and Purchase:
Dentists or dental clinics select the appropriate dental implant by acquiring its corresponding NFT.
The ownership (patient and dentist) of the dental implant is transferred to the buyer through the NFT transaction.

6. Surgical Planning and Traceability:
Dentists incorporate the unique identification code (linked to the NFT) into the surgical planning process. (eg. the digital surgical guide can be also mapped to the NFT)
The blockchain platform tracks the dental implant’s origin and history, providing a traceable record for future reference.

7. Implantation and Verification:
During the implantation procedure, dentists can verify the authenticity of the dental implant by scanning its unique identifier (e.g., QR code) linked to the NFT.
The blockchain platform instantly confirms the implant’s legitimacy, providing additional confidence during the surgical process.

8. Post-Procedure Support and Warranty:
Manufacturers integrate post-procedure support and warranty details into the NFT metadata.
Dentists and patients can easily access this information through the NFT for post-implantation care and warranty services.

9. Long-Term Monitoring and Maintenance:
Dental professionals can use the blockchain to monitor the dental implant’s performance and maintenance requirements over time.
This data helps ensure the implant’s durability and assists in personalized patient care.

Conclusion

There is no conclusion that can be provided as the uses cases of NFT in dentistry are enormous.

What do you think are other problems in dentistry that can be solved by NFTs?

Pictures: Prompt engineered using DALL-E

Please note: LLMs were prompted to develop some components of the contents of this blog