The existence of familial aggregation of mandibular prognathism (MP) suggests that genetic components play an important role in its etiology. In this study, a genome-wide linkage analysis to identify loci susceptible to MP was conducted with 90 affected sibling-pairs in 42 families, comprised of 40 Korean sibling-pairs and 50 Japanese sibling-pairs. Two non-parametric linkage analyses, GENEHUNTER-PLUS and SIBPAL, were applied and detected nominal statistical significance of linkage to MP at chromosomes 1p36, 6q25, and 19p13.2. The best evidence of linkage was detected near D1S234 (maximum Z(lr) = 2.51, P = 0.0012). In addition, evidence of linkage was observed near D6S305 (maximum Z(lr) = 2.23, P = 0.025) and D19S884 (maximum Z(lr) = 1.93, P = 0.0089). Identification of the susceptible genes in the linkage regions will pave the way for insights into the molecular pathways that cause MP, especially overgrowth of the mandible, and may lead to the development of novel therapeutic tools.

In recent years, with the increasing social awareness of safety in medical practice, improving clinical skills has become very important, especially for recently graduated dentists. Traditionally, mannequins have been used for clinical skill training, but a mannequin is quite different from a real patient because they have no autonomous movement or conversational ability. This indicates that pre‐clinical simulation education is inadequate. We have, therefore, developed a robot patient that can reproduce an authentic clinical situation for dental clinical training. The robot patient, designed as a full‐body model with a height of 157 cm, has eight degrees of freedom in the head and the ability to perform various autonomous movements. Moreover, saliva secretion and conversation with the trainee can be reproduced. We have introduced the robot patient into an objective structured clinical examination targeted at fifth‐grade students in our dental school to evaluate their skills in cavity preparation, whilst considering the safety of the treatment. As a result, many of the students were able to deal appropriately with a patient’s unexpected movement. Moreover, results of a questionnaire survey showed that almost all the students recognised the educational value of the robot patient especially for ‘risk management’, and they preferred the robot patient to traditional mannequins. Practical application of the robot patient in dental clinical education was evaluated through the experiences of the fifth‐grade students, which showed the effectiveness of the robot patient in the dental field.

No abstract