I wish to thank JADA for publishing the valuable August article, "Attrition, Abrasion, Corrosion and Abfraction Revised: A New Perspective on Tooth Surface Lesions," by Drs. John Grippo, Marvin Simring and Steven Schreiner.
Particularly important was their illustration of the multifactoral nature of many lesions. Etiology may have a primary, secondary, as well as a tertiary cause of pathology. The clinical dentist may be the single critical element to diagnosis of such diverse illnesses as occlusal para-function, eating disorders, drug and alcohol dependency, gastroesophageal reflux disease, etc. The authors illustrated this very well.
Also important was their reclassification of standard dental nomenclature to conform with other disciplines, such as biophysics and mechanical engineering. Increasingly, dental research involves studies outside of traditional dental groups. The authors’ definitions of attrition and corrosion are in line with standard engineering terminology. Dentistry’s term "erosion" should, for research standardization, be eliminated from dental nomenclature.
Today, dentistry continues with misnomers, like "adhesive dentistry," when referring to the properties of micromechanical cohesion. In fact, glass ionomers generate true chemical adhesive dentistry. As long as dentistry remains isolated, terminology may not seem important. However, as dental researchers are increasingly collaborating and communicating with researchers in others fields, appropriate and consistent terminology becomes ever more critical.
