Lasers in dentistry and oral surgery
The technical progress of the 20th century inevitably brings with it the development of new, modern diagnostic and therapeutic methods. This also applies to lasers. Among non-professional people and patients, I have seen more and more often that the place of lasers in medicine is “over-mystified”. Indeed, there are cases where this new technique overshadows traditional medical procedures, but in many cases it only completes them.
In short, the main applications of lasers in dentistry are laser surgery and soft laser therapy.
The laser itself is a special light source, laser radiation is a light beam and the modification of different physical properties of the light results in the differences that make the laser suitable for different purposes.
I would like to dispel the misconception according to which lasers are used in dentistry primarily for drilling teeth. Such laser equipment does indeed exist, but it is still rare in everyday practice because of its high price and the special conditions under which it is used.
Surgical lasers are characterised by their high performance and are usually completed by various optical and operating devices. During oral surgery, it is possible to cut, vaporise or “cook” the damaged tissue. It is most often useful in the removal of benign tumours of various head regions and oral cavities (tongue, lip), tumour-like anomalies, during surgeries performed in order to realize prosthetic restorations and also in the case of haemophilic patients.
Low-performance soft lasers, which can also be called therapeutic lasers, serve a completely different purpose. They do not cause any visible lesions (e.g. cuts) in the tissue, but have a wound-healing, analgesic, anti-inflammatory and exfoliating effect. They have also been shown to have a general immune-boosting, cell metabolism-enhancing effect. They are increasingly used in dentistry, not as a substitute for traditional dental treatment, but as a complementary treatment to enhance the results of traditional treatment. In such cases, patients recover much faster, with fewer complications, less pain and fewer side effects. In some cases, 1-2 treatments can produce spectacular results, in others a series of 5-10 treatments is needed.
The main applications of dental laser are:
treatment of various inflammations, e.g. treatment of gingivitis with laser, post extraction state, wound healing, treatment of inflammation around an erupting third molar, stimulation of wound healing after a surgery, oral mucosa inflammations, herpes, aphthae, pregnancy gingivitis in pregnant women (not instead of tartar removal, of course!), temporomandibular joint problems, lockjaw. It is very useful after implantation, i.e. artificial root implantation, to stimulate wound healing, exfoliation, anti-inflammation, in short, aftercare to prevent complications.
It is also worthwhile to include a dental laser treatment after tartar removal to help the gums heal faster. In our practice we use the Biolase Epic 10 diode laser.

Epic 10™