Dutch winner of award hopes boost of ART in China

Since its conception in 1985, the ART approach has been proven to be efficient in preventing and stopping the progression of dental caries. It is recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1994, not only for the sake of being less anxiety- and pain-provoking, but also because of its easy accessibility -- with no need of electricity or running water, it can be performed in more outreach situations such as at school, at home or in remote villages.

As summarized by Prof. Frencken, "it is a low-tech method to prevent and treat cavities, and it can influence the lives of people in a very pleasant way. That is very valuable. And it has also a caries preventive component."

During the past three decades, the Dutch specialist went around the globe to bring his method to more people. Cooperation with the Dutch Nijmegen dental health team has been set up in dozens of countries.

The need for accessible cavity treatment is everywhere : WHO statistics show that 60% to 90% of school children and nearly 100% of adults around the world have dental cavities. Moreover, oral disease is higher among poor and disadvantaged population groups, and use of oral health services is markedly low among people living in rural areas, which highlights accessibility as a strong point of ART.

In his cooperation with China, Prof. Frencken has supervised three PhD students. In 2012, he was appointed Visiting Professor of the Hospital and School of Stomatology of Wuhan University. The Dental School of the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen started cooperation with Wuhan University in 1992, by now several of its departments have established connections and are conducting research with top dental schools in seven Chinese cities.

"We have conducted important clinical research of which the results show that ART is applicable in China," Prof. Frencken told Xinhua.

Like in many other developing countries, people in China are in need of better dental care. Tooth extraction is still the main treatment for dental diseases in rural areas, possibly because of the restricted accessibility to preventive dental care and lack of well-trained dental personal in the rural region, according to research conducted in China's eastern province of Shandong by Zhang Qian, who is one of the "products" of the Nijmegen-Wuhan dental care cooperation.