A Comparison of US and Japanese Dental Restorative Care Present on Service Members Recovered from the WWII Era

The documentation of dental materials used in the USA during the WWII era is readily available, while references for the Japanese are minimal. It was therefore important to build a photographic database of Japanese restorative care which could be utilized as a comparison tool for the deployed odontologist. The dental restorative care of approximately 400 US and 100 Japanese sets of remains was evaluated. Both countries share many similar restorative techniques to include collared crowns, full-coverage restorations, cantilever bridge/pontics to close spaces; restorative materials such as amalgam, gold, and zinc phosphate (temporary) restorations; and removable prostheses. The dental restorative materials most commonly used by US dentists include the amalgam and silicate cement, while the full-coverage crown was the type of restoration most frequently seen on the Japanese remains. Silicates, porcelain and replaceable crowns, and partial-coverage prepared crowns were not observed on the recovered Japanese remains.