Allergic Reactions to Metals in the Mouth, 2nd Edition

Course overview

This basic-level course reviews the importance of metals for human health, identifies common harmful metals and their role in disease, and discusses hypersensitivity reactions, with particular regard to metal allergies in medical and dental patients. Corrosion is also discussed relative to its role in the hypersensitivity reactions experienced by dental patients. Chronic exposure to metal corrosion in the oral environment has been associated with swelling, bone resorption, oral lesions, and oral cancer in individuals who are hypersensitive to metals. For these reasons, it is imperative that dental professionals understand the different types of metals used in biomaterials, factors that increase corrosion susceptibility of dental restorations, and corrosion’s potential to increase patient hypersensitive to metals. Doing so will help dental professionals make more informed decisions about which biomaterials are the safest and most effective.