This was a very busy week for me, with two great trips, the opportunity to participate in exciting events, alongside networking with amazing colleagues from around the globe that share my passion for all things dentistry.

When I first heard about clear aligners in the early 2000s (the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of clear aligners to straighten teeth in 1980), it must have sounded like science fiction. The fact that it was created in Silicon Valley by people who had nothing to do with the dental industry, in seeking solutions that do not require complicated appliances in the mouth, is really an incredible story.

Why do we need to straighten teeth? How do we do it? What is the best way? These are the big questions nowadays, and I think that the answers to these questions, as well as how we actually do these treatments, have changed over the past decades.

Data regarding oral health in Portugal is worrisome. Thirty percent of the Portuguese only go to the dentist in an emergency and 10% of the national population has no teeth.