Clinical outcome & innovations in oral and maxillofacial surgery

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”—Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931)

Before being accepted into the mainstream of surgical practice, innovations must usually stand the “trials of time”. New technologies are often compared to existing ones. Amongst a list of considerations such as learning curve, surgical efficacy, patient safety and costs, clinical outcomes from the application of new methods or technology are often scrutinized. In research publications, they often first manifest in “case reports or case series” and “technical note”. However, clinical studies using robust randomized controlled trials remain sparse in oral & maxillofacial surgery (OMS).

The era of technology has brought about great advances in OMS. In the scientific literature, we have seen an increasing number of articles featuring the use of technologies in OMS such as: 3-dimensional imaging, virtual surgical planning, patient specific implant and guides, navigational surgical support, mixed and augmented reality, haptic feedback, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Often referred to as the “window to the soul”, the face not only provides an identity to oneself but also allows one to convey emotions through the various expressions. Functionally, we experience sight, sound, taste, hearing and touch all within the craniomaxillofacial complex. As oral & maxillofacial surgeons, we should thus strive to treat the various diseases, preserve and even restore facial form & function to our best abilities. Keeping in pace with research, assessing patients’ outcomes while applying current techniques and evaluating new technologies are ways for us to improve the level of patient care.

This series presents review articles (Table 1) featuring the clinical outcome and innovations of a range of OMS subspecialties.

The main objectives are:

• To highlight and discuss on the technological advances in the field of OMS;
• To discuss the clinical outcomes of various basic science and clinical studies in OMS namely orthognathic surgery, head and neck pathology, dentoalveolar and implant surgery.

As the Father of Innovation (Thomas Alva Edison) once said, “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration”. We hope that the articles in this series will inspire our fraternity to relentless pursue clinical excellence and surgical innovations in their quest to improve overall patient care.

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Frontiers of Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflicts and Interest: Both authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://fomm.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/fomm-23-72/coif). The series “Clinical Outcomes and Innovations in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery” was commissioned by the editorial office without any funding or sponsorship. S.K.C. served as the unpaid Guest Editor of the series and serves as an unpaid editorial board member of Frontiers of Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine from July 2024 to July 2026. The authors have no other conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.