New Opportunities for Dentistry in Diagnosis and Primary Health Care Report of Panel 1 of the Macy Study

Patient evaluation and diagnosis are essential to the practice of dentistry. Direct clinical ob-servations and radiographic findings are used to identify existing problems and to select the most appropriate dental treatment. Evaluation of a patient’s health status determines how systemic illnesses can modify oral, dental, and craniofacial diseases and a patient’s ability to tolerate dental treatment. New opportunities exist for expanding the concept of diagnosis in the dental office. Specifically, the relationship of oral infection to certain systemic diseases has re-emphasized the mouth-body con