Many people are afraid of going to the dentist, in a phenomenon that has its own name, odontophobia. We have already shown here at Mega some tricks to try to overcome this trauma, but the story we bring today can be even more distressing for those who have this problem: how about having a tooth implanted by a robot?

The first fully autonomous robot dentist was put into practice last Saturday (16), in the city of Xian, China. In an operation that lasted about 1 hour, the robot made two dental implants on one woman. The surgery was closely monitored by human doctors and dentists, but they did not significantly interfere with the process.

Fortunately, both implants were within the acceptable margin of error for this type of procedure, which is 0.2 to 0.3 mm! The robot took four years to develop by Fourth Military Medical University and the robotics department at Beihang University in Beijing.

Doctors and dentists followed the surgery just in case

The teeth were printed in 3D and then implanted by the robot, who, according to Dr. Zhao Yimin, one of China's leading oral aesthetics specialists, combines years of dental knowledge with cutting-edge technology. The country has a shortage of professionals able to perform this type of operation, and at least 400 million Chinese would need some kind of dental implant.

Human dentists perform about 1 million implant surgeries every year in China, but the precariousness of many of these operations puts patients' lives at risk. The idea of ​​popularizing the practice of robotic implants could speed up the process of reconstructing the smile of the Chinese with a lower complication rate.