Welcome.  Congratulations on taking an important step toward improving your practice by using the Bioclear Method—a revolutionary approach to restorative dentistry. The difference you’ll make for your patients can be life-changing.

This is part of an on-demand video training series designed to give you a foundation in the Bioclear System. Unlike our in-person classes at our Bioclear Learning Center—or our virtual live hands-on courses—these on-demand training modules are designed for maximum convenience, and accommodate a range of abilities and learning styles.

In this module, we’ll introduce you to the five pillars of the Bioclear Method. These are the five core foundational practices that make up the Bioclear Method. By the end of this module, you will be able to identify those five practices, and articulate the science and methodology behind them. You’ll come away with an understanding of how they make the Bioclear Method necessary, unique, and effective.

Each video in this module will introduce you to one of the five pillars. But first, let’s take a step back and look at Bioclear as a whole.

What is Bioclear?

If you’re watching this video, you probably already know something about it. Perhaps you know that it’s a complete method for dental restorations. Perhaps you’re familiar with the Bioclear Matrix, or our state-of-the-art injection-molded composites, made exclusively by 3M. And maybe you’ve read the scientific literature, or heard people talking about heated flowables. And maybe a customer has asked you about better options for fillings or black triangles, and you’re simply curious to learn about alternatives to the old G. V. Black approach.

All of these are valid.

Bioclear is both the name of our company, founded by Dr. David Clark, and our Learning Center in Tacoma, Washington. It’s also the name of a method of dental restorations that Dr. Clark pioneered about twenty years ago that uses thin, clear, semi-rigid matrices to mold a monolithic heated composite to a patient’s tooth. Bioclear also refers to the unique matrices we’ve designed specifically for this method. 

Now, you’ve likely used matrices and flowable composites before in restorations. So what’s different about Bioclear? Well, that’s what the five pillars are all about!

First of all, the Bioclear Method depends on complete removal of biofilm from a tooth’s surface. Surfaces must be cleared well or else composites won’t adhere well. And biofilm as you know is detrimental and tenacious; it can lead not only to debonding but to staining as well. Therefore removal of biofilm is the first pillar of the Bioclear Method.

The second pillar calls for modern preparation designs. Traditionally, preparations call for some kind of grinding down of the tooth to prepare the surface for adhesion of composites. These preps were designed with amalgams in mind. That’s the G.V. Black school, going back a century. It’s very clever from a dentist’s perspective, because it solves our problem of adhesion. But these dentists weren’t thinking too deeply about the physical integrity of the tooth. That’s what you get when you have dentists designing a feat of structural engineering. Traditional preps remove too much tooth structure, which in turn creates other problems.

By comparison, Bioclear actually applies concepts from structural engineering such as compression. As a result the Bioclear Method minimizes dentin reduction, maximizes enamel bond, and ensures that the forces on the tooth are not in tension. Modern prep design also allows for an infinity edge, making margins obsolete.

Matric design is the third pillar of the Bioclear Method.

Those traditional straight Mylar matrices you’re used to? They don’t naturally or easily conform to the shape of the tooth. And that’s just how it’s always been; we do our best to minimize margins. Except that those margins also cause other problems later on. And we know this, and we just tell patients that their restorations aren’t expected to last decades.

By comparison, Bioclear’s patented matrices are clear, true anatomical matrices. They result in a natural shape, ideal contact form and location, natural embrasures, and a beautiful infinity edge. Plus the 3M Filtek resin we use, when cured against mylar, resists biofilm more than any other method tested.

In fact, that Filtek resin is so important to the Bioclear Method, it becomes part of our fourth pillar: injection molding with heated composite. Traditional composites are prone to seams, gaps, and voids when manipulated—and when we talk about traditional, we mean even the ones you may be currently ordering from your sales rep—and again, we’re used to making do with the results. We take good enough for granted.

But heated composite and injection molding maximizes the composite’s strength and porcelain-like translucence without the seams, gaps, or voids. It’s not rocket science, but it is materials science. Bioclear uses Filtek Supreme and Filtek One products by 3M. 3M has tested these products for safety, reheating, compules, and FDA clearance. The importance of injection  molding with heated composite is so core to the Bioclear Method, it becomes our fourth pillar.

Last but not least is pillar five, the Rock-Star Polish. The polish is the factor that is most visible and impressive to patients, providers, and staff alike. And it’s the Rock Star polish that makes composite truly rival porcelain.

Rock Star Polish is simple three-step process using a 3M Soflex disk, Bioclear Magic Mix pre-polishing paste, and Bioclear RS diamond-impregnated cup polisher—RS for Rock Star—to achieve our remarkable results.

All five pillars are integral to the Bioclear Method. They’re what make it necessary, unique, and effective.

Again, the five pillars are: biofilm removal, modern prep designs, matrix design, injection molding with heated composite, and the rock-star polish.

After this video, you’ll be given a short quiz to test how well you recall these five pillars. In other videos, we’ll go into each one in more detail. These pillars form the “Why” of Bioclear; they underpin each and every treatment. Knowing them will help you better explain the Bioclear difference to your patients.