The American Dental Association (ADA), in partnership with the Center for Integrative Global Oral Health at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Dental Medicine (Penn Dental Medicine), has launched the first living guideline program dedicated to oral health.
The ADA Living Guideline Program will provide oral health professionals and patients with regularly updated, evidence-based recommendations aimed at improving both oral and overall health. This initiative marks a major advancement in how clinical guidelines are created and maintained in dentistry.
“Oral disease is estimated to affect nearly half the world’s population, and the number of cases continues to rise faster than population growth,” said Dr. Ashraf Fouad, chair of the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs and professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry. “The ADA Living Guidelines Program will offer dentists and healthcare professionals timely, science-backed guidance to support better care.”
The program’s first project is an update to a 2017 guideline on evaluating potentially malignant disorders and oral squamous cell carcinoma. The first recommendation is scheduled for digital publication later this year in The Journal of the American Dental Association and on ADA.org.
An advisory group made up of representatives from the ADA Council on Scientific Affairs, along with several other professional and government dental organizations, will help select and prioritize guideline topics.
Dr. Alonso Carrasco-Labra, the program’s principal investigator and director of the Cochrane Oral Health Collaborating Center at Penn Dental Medicine, noted that the initiative builds on the ADA’s previous guideline development work. “This program uses artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies to rapidly incorporate new research from biomedical literature into clinical guidelines,” he said.
Living guidelines are created by independent expert panels and are designed to assist oral health providers, patients, and other healthcare professionals in making informed care decisions. Unlike traditional guidelines, which are usually updated every three to five years, living guidelines are revised as soon as new evidence becomes available and has been rigorously reviewed.
“This faster update process allows patients, dental professionals, and policymakers to benefit from the latest scientific findings more quickly,” said Dr. Carrasco-Labra.
Mark S. Wolff, Morton Amsterdam Dean of Penn Dental Medicine, emphasized the importance of the new program. “We are proud to bring this critical service to our profession,” he said. “These guidelines have the potential to improve the oral health of millions.”