Monday, December 15, 2014
The end of the year is a wonderful time to look back and reflect on the previous 12 (or in our case 13*) months. Here at Dentalcompare we are kicking off our annual review of the year’s most popular content with the news that earned the most attention.
While these year-end lists are about numbers—specifically the number of times you viewed news, articles, products and categories—they’re really about trends. The most viewed content on Dentalcompare reflects the topics, techniques and products that are making the biggest impact on the dental industry.
With dental products being the focus of this site, it’s no surprise that most of the most popular news posts are new product announcements. However, the product categories represented here shows how broad your interests really are. Sure digital dental products are well represented on this list, but cosmetics, implants and even whitening also proved to be popular. As technology changes the way things can be done in the operatory, this list shows that providing a great result for the patient remains the most important thing to dental professionals.
With those thoughts in mind, we bring you the 10 most popular news articles of 2014.*
10. 
Enhanced Dental Product: 3Shape TRIOS Digital Impression System Adds Shade Matching – Digital impressions remains one of the most exciting technologies in the dental field, and early in 2014 3Shape became the first company to integrate shade matching into the impression process with this new feature for the TRIOS. This exciting breakthrough adds an efficiency to an already time saving technology.
9.
Enhanced Dental Product: Straumann Roxolid SLActive Dental Implants – Just as exciting as digital impression technology, advances in dental implants are changing the restorative possibilities available to patients. This article (which published on the the cut-off date for inclusion on this list) announced expanded options in a leading implant line, and that’s certainly notable.
8. 
New Dental Product: Wieland Zenotec select Dental Mill from Ivoclar Vivadent – The first of several dental lab mill announcements to make this list, here we have Ivoclar Vivadent’s dental lab CAD/CAM division’s latest workhorse. While the mill itself boasts some impressive features, the innovative attachment allowing batch processing of the company’s e.max material was the real exciting part of this announcement.
7. 
3M True Definition Scanner Now Compatible with Invisalign – Another popular digital impression news item, and this one was definitely the announcement of something groundbreaking. Align Technology already has a digital workflow for clear aligners with the iTero, so opening up the Invisalign network to scans from the True Definition was a welcome surprise to many dentists.
6. 
Sirona Partners with GC Corporation for New CEREC Materials – CAD/CAM news remains exciting and popular, even when the news is about the materials available to mill. This announcement that GC will be making materials for the CEREC System means more restorative options for clinicians and patients.
5. 
New Dental Product: Philips Zoom QuickPro In Office Whitening System – Of course it’s not all about high technology, and sometimes something simple to make patients happy is worth noting. This new whitening system from Philips offers a faster, less expensive chairside whitening option to give patients more reasons to smile.
4. 
New Dental Product: Galaxy BioMill CAD/CAM System from BIOLASE – The competition in the chairside CAD/CAM marketplace has been growing for the past few years. With this announcement of a powerful, open-architecture chairside mill and a full chairside solution, the leading dental laser company stepped into the arena. It’s no surprise people were paying attention to this debut.
3. 
New Dental Product: EyeSpecial C-II Digital Camera from Shofu – Everyone wants something made just for them, and that’s what Shofu provides with this digital camera. The EyeSpecial C-II is designed to meet the photography needs specific to dentistry, and it’s been popular since it hit the scene in the U.S. earlier this year.
2. 
New Dental Product: inLab MC X5 Dental Milling System from Sirona – The other dental lab mill to make this list, Sirona’s inLab MC X5 is big news for several reasons. It’s a powerful, versatile milling option for labs, but just as importantly, it’s Sirona’s first completely open architecture CAD/CAM product, and that’s a development to keep an eye on.
1. 
New Dental Products: Angulated Screw Channel Implant Abutments and Omnigrip Tooling from Nobel Biocare – Once again, a seemingly simple implant announcement makes this list, and this time it claims the top spot. Nobel Biocare’s new tooling and abutments are designed to make life easier for clinicians who place implants, and that’s exactly why people stopped and looked when this product was announced.
*The 2014 Top 10 lists are based on Dentalcompare traffic measured during the 13 month period from October 2013 – November 2014.