Dimitris Emmanouil is a specialist in pediatric dentistry, working in private practice and teaching. He is the past Assistant Professor at the Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Dental School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, and previously served as a Senior Lecturer at King’s College Dental Institute, London, UK. He is the Clinical Director of DentalKids, a group of pediatric dentistry and orthodontic practices in Greece, Italy, and the UK, having treated thousands of children over 30 years of practice. He completed the Pediatric Dentistry postgraduate program at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Medical College of Wisconsin, USA, and holds a Master’s degree from Marquette University, USA, a PhD from the University of Athens, Greece, and a Certificate in Epidemiology from Harvard Medical School. For over a decade, he has been an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Washington State University, School of Pharmacy, conducting extensive research on nitrous oxide pharmacology, which has earned awards from the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, the International Association of Pediatric Dentistry, and the American Society of Dental Anesthesiology. He is the co-editor of Nitrous Oxide in Pediatric Dentistry (Springer), has authored chapters in textbooks on pediatric dentistry, sedation, and special care, and has published widely in international literature, accumulating nearly 1,000 citations. As an internationally invited speaker, he lectures on nitrous oxide, special care dentistry, and behavior modification and has been a regular lecturer at Harvard Continuing Education courses in the USA. He is a past president and fellow of the International Association of Dentistry for Disability and Oral Health (IADH) and the American Dental Society of Europe (ADSE), the oldest dental society in Europe. He also serves as the Regent of Greece and Cyprus for the International College of Dentists and as the National Director of Special Smiles – Special Olympics, Greece. He is fluent in English, Greek, Italian, French, Spanish, and German.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is the nearly ‘ideal’ clinical sedative. For Paediatric Dentistry, it is almost as important as local anaesthesia. Many children (as well as children with special needs) would have been obliged to undergo deep sedation or general anaesthesia if it wasn’t available. N2O has been used for over 150 years in clinical dentistry for its analgesic and anxiolytic properties. In this lecture the way it is being used in Dentistry will be discussed. Recent studies have helped to clarify the analgesic, anxiolytic and amnesic mechanisms of N2O. The optimal techniques for treatment will be addressed as well as the impact of N2O on the climate.
