Dental Specialties

Each year children and adults find help at Mayo Clinic for serious and complex dental conditions that need specialized care. Mayo Clinic's Department of Dental Specialties team in Minnesota brings together a team of specialists to provide expert care in these areas:

• Dental hygiene.
• Dental sleep medicine, which offers dental appliances for people who can't use a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine.
• Dental or facial appliances (maxillofacial prosthetics) to help restore anatomy or function.
• Oral care for people with a history of head or neck cancer or who are undergoing cancer treatment (dental oncology).
• Hospital-based children's dentistry.
• Orthodontics.
• Guidance of facial growth and development (dentofacial orthopedics).
• Restoration of missing teeth with dental implants (periodontics).
• Restoration and replacement of missing or damaged teeth with artificial devices (prosthodontics).
• Restoration of dental implants with crowns or full-mouth appliances (prosthodontics).

Teamwork and care designed around you

Our specialists use advanced procedures and techniques to address dental conditions. They work with you to create a care plan that meets your needs and goals. Our team-based approach creates the space for unhurried, high-quality, patient-centered care.

The dental specialties team coordinates your care with doctors in other specialties as needed, such as oral maxillofacial surgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, otolaryngology, radiation oncology, and medical oncology. By working together, these experts help ensure each person gets exactly the care needed.

Services

You might benefit from one or more of our specialized services, depending on your dental health needs and goals:

Dental hygiene

• Oral health assessments and education in how to prevent dental issues.
• Scaling and root planing to treat gum disease, two forms of which are gingivitis and periodontitis.
• Maintenance of gum health and dental implants.

Dental sleep medicine

• Oral and X-ray exams for obstructive sleep apnea.
• Creation of oral appliances for obstructive sleep apnea.

Note: For medical insurance benefit, you must have consideration of a diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea and an oral appliance order from a doctor.

Hospital-based pediatric dentistry

• Oral and X-ray exams of children in the hospital in need of diagnosis of and treatment for dental health issues.
• Dental care, under general anesthesia if needed, for children in the hospital. Procedures include preventive care, fillings and crowns, tooth pulling, and surgery to change the tongue's range of motion. This procedure is called a frenotomy.

Maxillofacial prosthetics and dental oncology

• Restore anatomy and function inside the mouth (intraoral) using advanced techniques of virtual surgical and prosthetic planning.
• Restore anatomy and function outside the mouth (extraoral), such as for the ears, nose or eyes.
• Help restore clefts by using an appliance to reshape the lip and nostrils before cleft lip and cleft palate surgery.
• Consult with specialists in radiation oncology and medical oncology before, during and after cancer therapy.

Orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics

• Craniofacial and specialty orthodontics, including nasoalveolar molding appliances for infants, and care throughout adolescence and adulthood.
• Surgical orthodontics for people with TMJ disorders or those who need jaw surgery, also known as orthognathic (or-thog-NATH-ik) surgery.
• Treatment of facial trauma and head and neck cancer.
• Pre-prosthetic orthodontics for complex oral rehabilitation.
• Orthodontic care for children and adults.
• Orthopedic devices to help guide tooth growth in children.

Periodontics

• Treat bone and gum disease around natural teeth.
• Place, treat and maintain dental implants.
• Treat gum loss around teeth and implants.
• Regenerate bone and soft tissue.

Prosthodontics

• Restore missing teeth with dental implants.
• Restore a complete mouth with fixed or removable implants.
• Restore natural teeth with crowns and veneers.
• Restore missing teeth with removable, partial or complete dentures.

Contact

• Mayo Clinic Dental Specialties
  Mayo Clinic Building, Fourth Floor
  200 First Street SW
  Rochester, MN 55905
• Phone: 507-284-2850