Can You Use Air Polishing on Implants?

The Q4 2025 earnings from the three publicly-listed dental majors — Dentsply Sirona, Straumann Group, and Align Technology — collectively signal where the dental hardware market is heading, and prophylaxis equipment is following rather than leading that direction. The headline themes: capital reallocation toward connected dentistry, premium-segment resilience, and digital workflow dominance. Each has direct implications for clinics planning prophylaxis investments over 2026–2027.

Dentsply Sirona — restructuring and partnerships

Dentsply Sirona (NASDAQ: XRAY) reported Q4 2025 net sales of USD 961 million (+6.2% reported, +2.5% constant-currency), with a net loss of USD 146 million driven by USD 144 million net goodwill and intangible impairments. Full-year 2025 revenue came in at approximately USD 3.6 billion (+4.1%), with 2026 guidance of USD 3.5–3.6 billion.

The announcement that matters strategically is the Return-to-Growth Action Plan disclosed 26 February 2026: approximately USD 120 million in annualised cost savings, redirected into "innovation, clinical education, and sales team focused on connected dentistry." Non-recurring charges of USD 55–65 million are absorbed; the dividend was eliminated and capital redirected to debt retirement and share repurchases. New distribution partnerships were announced with Patterson Dental, Benco Dental, Burkhart Dental Supply, and A-dec. Don Zurbay, former CEO of Patterson Dental, joined the Board.

The editorial reading: Dentsply is restructuring its commercial footprint around connected workflows. The Cavitron family (its prophylaxis platform) and the Prophy Jet air polisher are categorised in this connected-dentistry direction, even though the dollar commitments are heavier in restorative and orthodontic adjacencies.

Straumann Group — AXS connected workflows + premium implantology

Straumann Group (SIX: STMN) reported full-year 2025 revenue of CHF 2.6 billion with organic growth of +8.9% in local currencies (Swiss-franc growth of +4.1% reflects heavy currency headwinds). Core EBIT margin came in at 26.5% on constant 2024 currencies (25.2% reported).

Strategic notes: growth driven by diversification across premium implantology, digital workflows, and orthodontics expansion; continued ClearCorrect strategic progress with new partnerships enhancing innovation and operational efficiency; launch of the SIRIOS X3 intraoral scanner; and continued expansion of connected workflows within the Straumann AXS cloud-based platform. AXS specifically positions implantology, restorative, and orthodontic workflows on a shared data layer.

2026 outlook is single-digit growth.

The prophylaxis read: Straumann does not sell prophylaxis equipment directly, but AXS's positioning as a workflow data layer signals where multi-modality dental hardware is heading. Air polishing equipment — particularly the EMS GBT Machine with its EMS Partner 2.0 dashboard — fits the same pattern at a smaller scale. Vendors that connect treatment data, powder consumption, and patient communication to a cloud platform are aligning with what Straumann's 8.9% organic growth has validated as the demand signal.

Align Technology — iTero Lumina dominance

Align Technology (NASDAQ: ALGN) reported Q4 2025 total revenue of USD 1,047.6 million (record), +5.2% sequentially and +5.3% year-over-year. Clear Aligner volumes were 676.9 thousand cases (record), +4.5% sequentially and +7.7% YoY. EMEA, Latin America, and Asia Pacific showed strength; North America held steady.

The teen and kids segment is structurally important: Q4 2025 teen/kids volumes +6.9% YoY; adult patient volumes +8.0% YoY. Full-year teen/kids Invisalign starts reached 936,000 (record), +7.8% YoY.

The iTero Lumina scanner is the operational story. Q4 2025 Systems and Services revenues were +10.3% sequentially and +4.2% YoY. iTero Lumina represented ~86% of full-system units in Q4 2025 — near-monopolistic dominance within Align's own scanner portfolio (Lumina originally released in 2024).

FY 2025 revenue: approximately USD 4 billion (+4.1%). 2026 outlook: +3–4%.

For prophylaxis, the relevance is indirect but real: Align's iTero ubiquity means that intra-oral scanning data is increasingly available in routine workflows. When prophylaxis equipment vendors talk about "connected documentation" and "cross-modality patient records," the assumed substrate is data from devices like iTero that already sit in 86% of new Align scanner sales.

Cross-cutting themes

Three patterns emerge from reading the three earnings releases together:

1. Capital reallocation to connected dentistry is concrete, not just narrative. Dentsply's USD 120M reinvestment, Straumann's AXS expansion, and Align's iTero scaling are dollar commitments to the same underlying thesis. For prophylaxis vendors not on a connected-platform trajectory, the strategic risk is real.

2. Premium-segment resilience. Straumann's +8.9% organic and Align's +7.7% YoY in clear aligners both point to premium dental hardware holding up against macroeconomic pressure. This supports continued investment in premium prophylaxis hardware — the EMS GBT Machine, the Mectron Combi Touch, the NSK Varios Combi Pro2 — for clinics with the patient base to support premium pricing.

3. Geographic shifts matter. EMEA, Latin America, and Asia Pacific show stronger growth than North America in Align's numbers; ES/PT/CEE Baltics lead European prophylaxis growth per the air-polishing market analysis. The geographic patterns are not coincidental — they reflect the same underlying demand mix.

What this means for prophylaxis procurement

For practices evaluating prophylaxis equipment in 2026, the macro signal is consistent: equipment that participates in connected workflows is better-positioned for the next 5–7 years than equipment that does not. Concretely:

• Connected-platform combined tabletop systems (EMS GBT Machine + EMS Partner 2.0; NSK Varios Combi Pro2 with Bluetooth foot control; Woodpecker PT-E with multi-language interface) align with the Straumann/Dentsply direction.
• Standalone air polishers without connected components (older AIRFLOW ONE configurations, basic handpieces) remain clinically valid but face slowly accumulating obsolescence risk over a 5-to-7-year horizon.
• For high-volume Iberian and CEE practices specifically, geographic alignment with where regional growth is concentrated reduces procurement risk; for replacement-cycle markets in Germany and Italy, the equipment-selection conversation is more about TCO than directionality.

The 2026 buyer's guide and the combined tabletop systems hub provide the system-level depth; this earnings read is the macro overlay.