This assistant may be intimidating, but a Topeka dentist swears by its cutting-edge results

A new dental assistant is available when it comes to oral surgery and implants at Aspen Dental.

Aspen Dental, 1730 S.W. Wanamaker Road, is the first dental office of Topeka, now has the YOMI Robotic Dental System by Neocis. YOMI is the first FDA-approved, robot-assisted dental surgical system.

It received FDA clearance for full arch implant treatment in 2020.

Adam Marina, DDS, of Aspen Dental, said the advancement is important. Marina said patients often are afraid of the dentist, and they may move around during a procedure.

"This doesn't allow us to place it anywhere but exactly where we placed it in the computer," Marina said during a demonstration of the robot to The Capital-Journal.

A three-dimensional X-Ray is taken and allows the dental team to get a more realistic image of where dental implants will be placed.

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How does the YOMI Robotic Dental system work?

The Yomi works like a GPS system in helping Marina map out and customize a treatment plan custom-made for each patient. While doing so, it eliminates prediction work and shows the exact depth, cutting position and needed angles to achieve the best results.

"Once we have everything lined up then we do a landmark to confirm where everything is," Marina said. "Then, whenever we place the implant, I will guide the robot to the patient's mouth. But it will lock in the right position so that I can't move out of the correct alignment."

Should the patient move, the robotic arm adjusts itself automatically.

The computer system won't allow for placements until the dentist approves. The dentist controls the drill and can change the treatment plan if needed.

"What this does is it mimics what I want," he said. "So, this just completes my treatment plan. When you see the amount of trauma that normally gets done when you place an implant — you have to flap the whole tissue open, see the entire bone, the ridge of the jaw.

"And you have to go in there and kind of just hope that you're doing it the right way."

On average, one implant takes less than an hour. A full arch can be completed in 90 minutes.

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Almost 100 procedures with YOMI have been performed in a month

Marina said his dental office has done probably 100 procedures after having the robot for a month.

"We're actually the first one in Kansas to have this and the first in the whole company of Aspen — and Aspen has over 1,000 offices — and this is No. 1," Marina said.

Dental assistant Courtney Fulton said the process of operating the robot isn't as difficult as she thought it would be.

"It's more like you're overthinking it more than anything," Fulton said. "When my patients come in here and that's the first thing they look at — it's more intimidating looking at it than what it is while being in use. When we get done, I actually have patients say, 'Oh, it's not that bad!'

"It's just a big machine in here, which is the intimidating part."

What are the risk for using YOMI?

Marina said errors would occur more often from a dentist more than it would from the robot since the dentist must take several step for accuracy prior to allowing it to begin.

"There's always risk with anything you do, but the risk with this are extremely minimal compared to just free handing it or even doing a surgical guide." Marina said. "A surgical guide, you can drill right through a nerve, because it doesn't stop you. But, this will stop you because it knows that is the point where I planned it in the computer to where it's going to go."

Marina purchased the robotic system himself and said it cost about $200,000. He hopes to see the model picked up across the Aspen company.

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"There's not a lot of places that you can go that would have this quality of care," he said. "And for the number of implants we do, and the fact that there's not a whole lot of dentists in Topeka, I think this is basically necessary."

Alon Mozes, co-founder and CEO of Neocis, said Marina and his team joined a network of more than 140 dental offices across the country using the YOMI platform to place implants.

"The Neocis team is excited to see what Dr. Marina is able to achieve with our revolutionary technology at his side," Mozes said.

Keishera Lately is the business reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. She can be reached at klately@cjonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @Lately_KT.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: YOMI dental robot assistant now being used in a Topeka dentist office