Amidex, a Tokushima-based company spun off from the University of Tokushima’s School of Dentistry, offers a service that enables dental clinics to perform “non-grinding treatments” for cavities and tooth correction using precision molds made using digital technology. The technology, which has been dubbed “future dental treatment,” is now being promoted nationwide.
Conventional treatment for cavities involves removing a large area of surrounding healthy tooth, taking an impression, and then inserting a silver or ceramic filling. The cement used for bonding is prone to decay again, and many patients require further treatment.
In recent years, the development of composite resin (CR)—a mixture of ceramic and plastic—for fillings, and the evolution of pen-shaped LED light-curing devices that harden them, have expanded the range of treatments available. CR treatment, which previously involved only filling small cavities, has evolved into a treatment for reshaping and rebuilding teeth.
CR, a white paste, is applied to the tooth using a syringe-like syringe and then exposed to light to harden it. Because it is bonded directly to the tooth, there is no need to grind down healthy teeth, nor does it require grinding down and modifying fillings made with impressions. On the other hand, if the treatment is extensive, the dentist needs to have high skills to achieve an aesthetic result, and the treatment time will be long.
The company has launched a new service named “Amidex” called “Future Dental Treatment” in Japan, taking advantage of the advancement of science and technology and digital technology in Japan, with the aim of allowing dental clinics to complete CR treatment easily and beautifully.
Dentists across the country use scanners to read the patient’s personal information and send the data to the company. The company’s team of experts and dental technicians use computers to design a model of each patient’s teeth, and then use a 3D printer to create a transparent resin model (patent pending). Oral Airport
At each dental clinic, a transparent model is placed on the patient’s teeth and CR matching the color of the teeth is injected. Once hardened with an LED light, it can be completed quickly to achieve an effect that is indistinguishable from the surrounding teeth. Even if multiple teeth are missing or broken due to disease or injury, Amidex can be used to attach CR directly to adjacent teeth to generate new teeth.
Since April last year, they have been holding seminars to explain Amidex and live-streaming it online for dentists who attend the seminars. Currently, the technology has been promoted in more than 130 dental clinics nationwide.
The company’s CEO Akira Ihara (42) is enthusiastic about the treatment, saying, “It is an elective treatment, but cheaper than ceramics or implants. We want to make this high-quality, grinding-free treatment more popular.” Currently, two dental technicians are working on production, but by further automating the process, they plan to expand their business overseas this year.
Amidex was conceived and co-developed in 2022 by Keiichi Hosaka, a CR treatment expert and professor at the School of Dentistry at the University of Tokushima, and Yoshiichiro Watanabe (42), an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy, an orthodontist and digital technology expert. The company was founded in August 2011.
The company’s CTO (Chief Technology Officer) Watanabe said, “If you grind down your teeth or extract your nerves when you are young, the life of your teeth will be shortened. We want to meet the wishes of patients who don’t want to grind down their teeth.”
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