Dental Tribune U.S. Edition

XXXXX a8 Dental Tribune U.S. Edition | May 2014 Industry News Ad By Tarun Agarwal, DDS, PA Today’s digital impres- sion technology enables dentists to create a vir- tual, computer-generated replica of the hard and soft tissues in the mouth quickly and accurate- ly using their choice of optical scanning device. As an ardent supporter of digital impressions, I make every attempt to digi- tize our restorative workflow. There are numerous benefits to a digital impression: • Efficiency: It takes less time to take a digital impression than a traditional im- pression. • Quicker turnaround time: Clinicians often forget or fail to realize the true value of this. Getting restorations back faster is better for the patient, the practice and the overall case outcome. • Cost savings: Have you ever calculated the cost of taking a traditional impression for a final restoration? If you add up what your office spends on impression materi- als, chair time and case shipping fees, you will be amazed at how much is spent on traditional methods. Case presentation The female featured in this article has been a patient in our practice for nearly eight years. She has a porcelain-fused-to- metal bridge from tooth #5 to #12 replac- ing missing #7 to #10. She is not terribly unhappy with the look and feel of the bridge, but the bridge has been no strang- er to the big issue facing PFM restorations: the chipping of porcelain from the metal substructure. During the past eight years, we have patched various corners and lin- gual surfaces. Recently, the patient agreed to replace her long-span PFM bridge with an im- plant-supported bridge on #7 to #10 and individual crowns on the abutment teeth. However, she was adamant about not go- ing a day without teeth. We advised her that this would not be an issue. Because of the complexity of her im- plant surgery, immediate loading was not possible. This meant we needed a long- term esthetic provisional that would last the duration of the treatment, could be removed for surgery and was adjustable for post-surgical contouring. A BioTemps® provisional bridge (Glidewell Laboratories; Newport Beach, Calif.) was the quick and easy answer. Traditionally, BioTemps are made prior to preparation and relined chairside. In this case, I wanted to have the BioTemps made to fit the final preparations of the abutment teeth, which would later be con- verted to individual restorations. As an advocate of digital impressions, I chose to follow a digital workflow. The provisional BioTemps bridge offers the following important advantages in this case: 1) Trial smile: The patient gets a “trial” of Fig. 1: Preoperative photograph of the patient’s existing longspan PFM bridge. Note the bulky and gray margins, unesthetic contours and ‘patch’ composites used to repair areas of chipped porcelain. Utilizing a digital workflow for provisionalization with BioTemps CDA BOOTH NO. 1474 Fig. 2: The original abutment preps are cleaned and reduced to the appropriate margin thickness. Photos/Provided by Glidewell Laboratories ” See BIOTEMPS, page A9