New Trend Intrigues Veteran Dentist
BRILLIANT EverGlow® from Coltene meets demand for a simplified composite system
Frank Milnar, DDS
Frank Milnar, DDS, started his dental practice in 1977 with a number of goals, but he primarily wanted to be busy and gain clinical experience. As his career developed during the next 2 decades, he embraced dentistry's cosmetic revolution by joining the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD), taking college art history courses to learn more about color, and spending 1 day per week in a dental laboratory to better understand ceramists' comprehension of color and contour. Today, Milnar has sold his practice but continues to work as an associate while also serving as an educator and a clinical consultant. "The legacy part of my career has been the most fulfilling," he says. "I am mentoring dental students and young dentists in order to pass along everything I have learned and help them enjoy marvelous careers in dentistry."
Indeed, mentorship helped Milnar build his own career. He notes that joining the AACD and becoming one of the first 400 accredited members changed his career and his life. "World-class mentors helped me with my goal to become accredited," he says. "I did it in 3 years with slide photography. I also educated my assistant about all of the new thought processes, techniques, and materials that I was learning, and that was one of the best investments I ever made."
As a young dentist, one of Milnar's other initial goals was to do more restorative work with composites. The materials available in 1977 were not very predictable; however, over the years, that changed.
In 2016, Milnar became a clinical consultant and educator for Coltene, and he was introduced to BRILLIANT EverGlow®, a universal submicron hybrid composite with roots that could be traced back to the company's SYNERGY® D6 nano-hybrid composite, which was almost a decade old at the time. "These materials focused on simplifying shade selection with a Duo Shade system, which was in direct contrast with what was happening in cosmetic dentistry at the time," he says.
At the time, the trend was to place more characteristic shades in the incisal third. Milnar was still teaching 20 shades in his elite workshops, but he was impressed with the simplified system's ability to cover a wide range of tooth shades. "I became curious as to why the duo-shade approach wasn't more popular in dentistry," he says. "I learned that BRILLIANT EverGlow was easy to place, demonstrated excellent polish and gloss retention, wasn't too sticky, and possessed a compressive strength of 390 MPa. As I did more research, I found that, when compared with other composites, it exhibited one of the lowest levels of surface roughness after polishing."
Fast-forward to 2021, and all of those characteristics are in high demand. "In our post-COVID-19 reality, dentists are looking for composite systems that are less complex with less shades and less necessary inventory," Milnar says. "They are looking for everything that SYNERGY D6 introduced in 2007 and everything that BRILLIANT EverGlow offers now. Duo Shade was visionary, but now it is the new normal."
BRILLIANT EverGlow excels by providing convenient sculptability and form stability. Its submicron filler technology is engineered to provide an ideal combination of handling convenience and mechanical strength, and the addition of prepolymerized fillers, which have the same composition as the uncured composite, lowers the volume shrinkage and improves the sculpting properties of the paste. The submicron glass fillers also contribute to long-lasting esthetics by providing excellent polishability and gloss retention. BRILLIANT EverGlow's sophisticated shade system offers three levels of translucency, and its enhanced Duo Shades facilitate flexibility when placing single-shade and multishade layered restorations. Invented by Coltene, Duo Shades simplify shade management by leveraging optical properties to combine two VITA shades into a single shade (eg, A1/B1, A2/B2). In addition, the system also now includes BRILLIANT EverGlow Flow, which is based on the same filler technology but demonstrates a more flowable consistency.
"It is a synergistic system that also includes Coltene's ONE COAT 7 UNIVERSAL bonding agent, Alpen® burs, and Alpen® ShapeGuard™ polishers," Milnar says. "As a dental educator, finding a company that offers the complete package of burs, dentin bonding agents, flowable composites, universal shades, finishers, and polishers is essential to me. That can help to simplify dentistry."
Of course, the stellar clinical performance of the BRILLIANT EverGlow system is complemented by the financial benefits of its simplicity. "Everything that I know about profitability in dentistry today involves increasing revenue by either attracting more new patients or decreasing fixed overhead, which includes supplies," Milnar says. "At a time when we are spending more money on personal protective equipment and everything else that we need to keep our practices open, decreasing the number of shades that we need to stock can improve our profit margins."
Staying busy and performing quality dentistry has always been the goal, and Milnar believes the BRILLIANT EverGlow system makes that more realistic than ever for the next generation of dentists. "It has everything you need," he says, "in a system that is efficient, effective, and economical."
Key Points
• Exceptional polishability and long-lasting brilliance provide beautiful, natural looking esthetics.
• A versatile shade system with three translucency levels and flexible Duo Shades simplifies shade matching.
• Excellent sculptability and smooth consistency facilitate easy, precise placement.
• Demonstrates good wettability with minimal stickiness to the instrument.
