[Current applications and future perspectives of automation technologies and devices in oral diagnosis and treatment].

Abstract

Automation technologies and devices are becoming an increasingly important component of the digital and intelligent transformation of oral healthcare. With on-going advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced manufacturing, their applications have expanded across oral diagnosis, surgery and treatment, prosthodontics, and orthodontics, as well as oral care and maintenance. These technologies have shown considerable potential for improving diagnostic and therapeutic accuracy, efficiency, consistency, and reproducibility. Importantly, automation in oral healthcare should not be understood simply as the replacement of manual procedures by standalone devices. Rather, it represents the optimization of clinical workflows based on standar-dized data acquisition, algorithm- or rule-based decision-making, and dedicated execution platforms. This review summarizes the current research progress and clinical applications of automation technologies and devices in major oral healthcare scenarios and discusses the characteristics, application scope, and practical challenges of different technical routes. Future directions are also outlined to provide a reference for clinical workflow optimization, technology translation, and device development in oral healthcare.