[Planning guidelines for prosthodontic treatment]

In recent years "practice guidelines" based on EBM techniques have even been attracting attention at a societal level, and guidelines modeled after the procedure for preparing practice guideline (described at http://www.niph.go.jp/glgl-4.3rev.htm) have begun to be drafted and made public. With the aim of ensuring the quality and presenting the basic concepts of prosthodontic therapy, the Japan Prosthodontic Society, which bears a great obligation and responsibility toward society and the Japanese public, has decided to undertake the formulation of guidelines related to prosthodontic therapy, and decided to first undertake the formulation of "Practice guideline for denture relining and rebasing", and to prepare a guideline model. We tried to prepare the guidelines according to the "Procedure for preparing practice guidelines", but because of the scientific uniqueness of prosthodontic treatment and dentistry, research to elucidate the basis of treatment has been insufficient, and we ultimately reconfirmed the current state of affairs in which it is difficult to perform. We therefore prepared the guidelines based on the limited evidence obtained in a search of the scientific literature and on the consensus of experts. The Japan Prosthodontic Society has investigated and prepared a Society guideline "model" to the extent possible at the present time, and it has prepared "Guidelines for adhesion bridge" and "Practice guidelines for denture prosthodontics" based on it. Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that we are faced with numerous problems, and we think that in the future new bases and clinical knowledge will be accumulated by promoting scientific clinical research, and that the guidelines should be revised regularly based on them.