About this Research Topic

Background

Veterinary dentistry and oromaxillofacial surgery has grown over the past four decades to a recognized specialty within the veterinary field. This is particularly true in small animals where human dentists have helped pave the way for veterinarians to be in charge of their own specialty today.

The same advancement is happening in the dentistry and oromaxillofacial surgery field concerning wildlife and exotic animal species. In fact, this specialization has been approved by both the American Veterinary Dental College (AVDC), as well as the European Veterinary Dental College (EVDC). In 2017 the inaugural examination of the certificate for zoo and wildlife dentistry (under the auspices of the AVDC) was held and 15 founding members passed the examination. This group was made up of 13 AVDC or EVDC diplomats and 2 non-diplomats.

This event signaled the coming of age of dentistry and oromaxillofacial surgery of animals not previously regarded as domestic pets and catered for within the small animal and equine dentistry programs. It is an extremely broad and diverse group of animals including all the classes under the phylum Chordata (Vertebrates). In fact, veterinary dentists with a particular interest in wildlife and exotic animals often are required to treat extra oral pathology with the instruments and materials developed for intraoral use.
There are only a few texts devoted to this field of veterinary science and most of them are quite dated. Some recent texts included some sections on dentistry in wild animals (Fowlers – Elephant Dentistry, Marine mammal dentistry). The first comprehensive chapter on marsupial dental radiography was also recently published. The last collection of articles regarding dentistry in wild and exotic animals was done in 2007. The latter collection was not peer reviewed and was more of a review of certain aspects of veterinary dentistry in wild and exotic animals. A collection of articles dedicated to dentistry and oromaxillfacial surgery of wild and exotic animals is therefore long overdue and we would like to dedicate a specific Research Topic within the Frontiers family to this.

We would like to invite original research papers or case collections (not single case reports) on any aspect of dentistry and oromaxillofacial surgery of wild and exotic animals for consideration in this Research Topic. These can be on any aspect of this chosen field including (but not restricted to):

• Dentistry (all subjects like anatomy, physiology, endodontics, periodontics, prosthodontics, exodontics, dental materials, etc.)
• Oral surgery
• Maxillofacial surgery
• Oral medicine
• Oromaxillofacial oncology
• Beakastry (use of dental materials to help with beak trauma/deformities in birds)

Keywords: wildlife, exotic, tooth, jaw, fracture, tumour

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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