Dental treatment and dental health. Part 1. A review of studies in support of a philosophy of Minimum Intervention Dentistry.

An international movement emerged in 1986-1987 which heralded a major change in the role of conservative dentistry. This shift was away from the traditional operative dentistry, with its relatively frequent replacement of restorations, to a concept of 'Minimum Intervention Dentistry', which advocates the use of adhesive dental materials, remineralization techniques and monitoring of initial carious lesions. The move away from some of Black's concepts started as investigations examined the dental health of patients in the National Health Service of Great Britain. These investigations, and the report of the Committee of Enquiry into Unnecessary Dental Treatment, have resulted in an extensive re-education programme being initiated by the British Department of Health and Social Security in conjunction with the British Dental Association. This paper, and a subsequent one, were written to enable widespread dissemination of these ideologies to Australian practitioners. While they may appear provocative to some, these papers were merely meant to stimulate discussion on the implications of this research for dentistry in this country. In this paper the results from the British investigations are presented, as is a discussion of some of the outcomes of this and other related research.