The odontogram could use enhancements to make charting more accurate and flexible. I would love to see things such as 1) the ability to show supernumerary teeth (in addition to the rest of the dentition), 2) retained root tips (when the crown is missing), 3) the ability to alter the chart (sliding everything mesial or distal) depending on tooth loss and drift, 4) better surface drawings that more accurately reflect the part(s) of the tooth treated. To elaborate, a new MO doesn't fit fully over an old O. If you replaced an old occlusal amalgam with an MO resin, you see the MO resin and part of the O amalgam. The teeth should be broken into zones, allowing the user to pick the treated zones, making the restoration look as it is, not how Dentrix allows us to see/create it. A short MO differs from a long MO (almost a MOD. Treated cusps should blend in with the rest of the drawing instead of showing as a separate overlay, which is sloppy and unsightly. When using dotted to represent resin, it is impossible to show a chairside resin veneer because you cannot draw the entire facial surface in the dotted pattern. The zones could also represent chips and fractures, making parts of a tooth disappear instead of drawing a pattern). The same patterns should be available to surface drawings, crowns, and denture teeth to represent consistency across materials. We should also be able to choose which teeth connect and which don't when charting retainer crowns (splinted crowns). These enhancements would be a great place to start.
Michael Kapner
