Evaluating and Establishing Ideal Smile Esthetics : Beauty is More than Skin Deep
Summary

The average woman in the US smiles 62 times daily and a smile can convey so much about a person and their mood.⁸⁶ Many factors individually and their interaction contribute to smile and facial esthetics. It is important that clinicians can identify the factors that may be contributing to a patients’ complaint of compromised esthetics and to understand the ideal multidisciplinary interventions that can allow establishment of a more harmonious esthetic environment! A thorough assessment is necessary to identify all the underlying etiologies that may contribute to reduced esthetics. This should include identifying address individual patient’s perceived esthetic challenges. Further, clinicians should understand the likely predictable outcomes of common treatments for esthetic concerns. Finally employing digital technologies and/or reversible interventions to demonstrate likely treatment outcomes can allow patients and dental healthcare providers to develop an understanding of the achievable outcomes of treatment. In many cases of esthetic compromise, more than one factor is contributing to the reduction in perceived esthetics and the engagement of an interdisciplinary team is ideal to deliver solutions for such patients that address multifactorial etiologies that underpin compromised smile esthetics in those cases.