Fundamentals of Treatment Planning. Lino Calvani
on the battlefields and in the clinic.
In addition, the 1918 influenza epidemic (known as the Spanish Flu), largely brought on by the unhygienic conditions of the First World War, left roughly 50 million dead worldwide. Therefore, the total death toll in the almost 50-year period spanning both world wars was about 125 million people, not to mention the millions more who were seriously injured in these wars and who died prematurely later on. On top of this, other local wars and epidemics followed, bringing the death toll to some 13% to 14% of the entire world population at that time.21,22-24
Due to these events, and thanks to the increased number of dedicated medical scientists and facilities, improved communication and media, and the growing body of scientific and medical knowledge that had been slowly accumulating over centuries, medical science made a great leap forward in the first part of the 20th century. The level of awareness and consciousness regarding medical treatment and its planning increased rapidly during that time, bringing a deeper understanding of the importance of knowledge about medical procedures and being well organized in the planning of treatment (this includes dental medicine and prosthodontic treatment planning, even though the latter is not always that well defined).25-27
Population growth is another important factor in the development of treatment planning. Over the last three millennia, the human population has increased from about 50 million to 7.5 billion people. Parallel to this is the increase in the number of scientists and thinkers who have dedicated their lives to solving medical problems, which has escalated the number of possibilities for furthering medical and dental medical science.28,29 Inventions and discoveries that make possible the forward movement of science and medicine are not made so much by specific individuals as by the collective knowledge and awareness that accumulates over time.30-34 This is known as ‘collective intelligence,’ which expands exponentially all the time, thereby increasing the possibility of more and more discoveries that lead to better medical understanding. For instance, about a century ago there would have been few, if any, physicists who properly understood Einstein’s theories. Today, hundreds of thousands of students easily do, and thanks largely to the internet, their contributions to science are easily and quickly spread throughout the world. Just a century ago, only a few physicians knew what an antibiotic was, and thousands of people died of bacterial infections. Today, most people know about antibiotics and millions of people take them, often autonomously and without careful prescription (which has unfortunately also resulted in an alarming and increasing physiologic resistance to them).
This ties in with another important factor in the understanding of the development of treatment planning, which is communication and the media, particularly the internet and smart phones.17,35-37 Since the two world wars (and therefore in less than a century), information about medical science has rapidly increased, and has been shared among millions of medical and dental professionals. This means that the panorama of clinical planning and treatment is continually changing and evolving.
‘Hyper-science’ and the future
When the famous physicist Niels Bohr (1885–1962) was asked to make predictions about the future, he said humorously: “Predictions are very difficult, especially about the future.” Every small scientific step forward changes our understanding of how to plan and treat medical conditions. However, despite how technology today allows for easy online access for most people to medical research, data, literature, and information, human endeavor remains crucial and necessary.
Currently, data acquisition and processing speeds seem to depend on a number of disruptive ‘innovation platforms’ that cut across sectors and markets and converge on each other on the medical stage, such as:
1. 5G and 6G internet connections.
2. Micro and macro energy storage for industry, farming, transportation, cities, etc.
3. Plasma and quantum computers; liquid, nano-magnetic, and graphene transistors.
4. Artificial intelligence (AI), artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), artificial general intelligence (AGI), deep-learning software (DLS), and self-learning software (SLS).
5. Collaborative robotics and humanoids.
6. Computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and 3D printing.
7. DNA sequencing and CRISPR therapeutic genome editing.
8. Nanotechnologies.
‘Hyper-science’ (author’s own word) seems an appropriate composite word for these revolutionary technologies and the current rapid growth of scientific knowledge. As never before, the progress of science is accelerating, and capabilities and possibilities are increasingly opening up. Which is why the medical progress indicators predict that medical and dental schools will structurally change in the near future under the pressure of digital innovations.38-44
A clear example of the above is the new, cheaper DNA sequencing and CRISPR genome editing that is enabling scientists to develop new types of diagnostic screens, tests, and therapies. Computational techniques are changing our schools and educational programs constantly, with the three-dimensional resources of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) changing the way students and faculty interact, including the interaction with robots.45-54 Nanotechnology is increasingly being used to treat patients. Predictions made on solid scientific bases foresee that, two or three decades from now, well-programmed super-intelligent ANI, and well-instructed human-dependent or independent AGI machines as well as AGI humanoid robotized digital doctors and caregivers will clinically treat patients suffering from an increasing variety of diseases and will also feature in the laboratory. These machines will be able to handle programmable and injectable chemotherapeutical nanorobots and nanocarriers. They will be much faster and, in many ways, more capable than humans to do the job of medical care providers.25,41,55-58 We will refer to them with trust when we are ill or wounded.
Knowledge, consciousness, and indeed our entire way of living and working are being revolutionized. One only has to attend medical and dental medical meetings, conferences, and expos all over the world to see where the market is now and where it is heading, and how much money is involved. Human history has always demonstrated that whatever we are capable of imagining, we are capable of achieving. Digital science has come a long way, being completely free today of any religious constraints that might prevent it from progressing.
Currently, there is much hyper-scientific intelligent curiosity and imagination at work.59 An exciting example is the newest IBM Watson Machine Learning, which harnesses machine learning and deep learning in a