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2Robot Technology in dentistry, literature characteristics29LimitationsThis review is not free of limitations. Firstly, a relative high number (26 out of 161) of articles were excluded based on the lack of full-text articles available. This has to be taken into account when interpreting these results. Most articles were unavailable either because they concerned articles originated before 1990 or were published in local/regional or commercial journals to which the authors did not have access to. Based on the available titles and abstracts of the excluded articles, the topics and methods covered in these excluded articles were well in line with the included articles. The authors are convinced that inclusion of these articles would not have led to significant changes in the conclusions of this article. Secondly, the determination of the level of technological readiness is made on the information supplied in the paper. In some articles information regarding the development level was limited which might lead to minor misjudgments of the TRL level.Finally, in our search strategy an assumption was made that, if an author used the term robot technology, it was considered as such. This might lead to an underestimation since authors might describe their technology with different keywords. Despite this, the authors do not expect to have missed important articles on robot technology in dentistry by using this strategy.ConclusionThis study provides a comprehensive overview of the characteristics of literature on robot technology in dentistry since its very beginning. While there were many interesting robot initiatives reported, the overall quality of the study design is low which was similar to the general level of technological readiness. Robots interact mostly with dental material (i.e., orthodontic wires) and interact with humans mostly when direct contact can be avoided (i.e. educational purposes). The amount of publications seems to stabilize in recent years to about six articles per year and most first authors have a technical background (84%). Tom van Riet.indd 29 26-10-2023 11:59