Dental Tribune U.S.Edition

a10 Dental Tribune U.S. Edition | August 2014 Industry News Ad By Michael McCracken, DDS, PhD, and Jonathan P. Ouellette, DMD F ixed hybrid dentures have been used to successfully restore fully edentulous patients for decades. Their durability, however, leaves room for improvement. There are three issues that can complicate the long-term success of the traditional fixed hybrid denture: The acrylic teeth tend to wear; the teeth can fracture or dislodge from Restoring the edentulous arch with BruxZir full-arch implant prosthesis the acrylic base; and the acrylic base itself can fracture. The BruxZir® Full-Arch Implant Prosthesis (Glidewell Laborato- ries, Newport Beach, Calif.) elimi- nates these issues, providing a resto- ration that is more durable in the long term, while sacrificing nothing when it comes to esthetics. Milled from a single block of BruxZir Solid Zirconia — an exceptionally fracture-resistant material that exhibits flexural strength up to 1465 MPa — this ” See ARCH, page A12 CDA BOOTH NO. 1532 Figs. 1a, b: The patient presented with six maxillary and five mandibular implants that were fully integrated and ready for restoration. Photos/Provided by Glidewell Laboratories fixed prosthesis utilizes advanced stain- ing and glazing techniques, coloring the prosthetic teeth to closely mimic natu- ral dentition and the gingival areas to match the shade of the patient’s soft tis- sue. Case report The patient is a 58-year-old male with no contraindications for implant treat- ment. The patient had a total of 11 Bio- Horizons® Internal Hex implants (Bio- Horizons; Birmingham, Ala.) placed, including six in the maxilla and five in the mandible (Figs. 1a, b). The implants integrated for more than six months, and the patient presented for restoration of his edentulous arches. First, preliminary impressions of the implants were made. After removing the healing abutments, closed-tray impres- sion copings were seated. The impres- sions were made in stock plastic trays, and the impression copings were placed back into the impressions before the case was sent off to the laboratory. The laboratory poured casts from the initial impressions and fabricated bite blocks and occlusal rims for the centric jaw relationship (CJR) records. Each bite block contains two screw-retained tem- porary cylinders that allow the wax rims to be screwed down, producing a very accurate CJR. The contoured rims were returned to the laboratory with the ini- tial casts. Upon receiving the wax rims and jaw relation records, the laboratory and den- tist decided that the patient required four multi-unit abutments in the ante- rior maxilla to ensure that the screw ac- cess openings were within the confines of the planned prosthesis, so at the next appointment, the patient’s healing abut- ments were removed, and the multi-unit abutments were transferred to the pa- tient’s mouth and torqued into place. Later, wax setups were tried in and evaluated for proper esthetics, phonetics, contours, occlusion and tooth arrangement. The implant verification jig (IVJ), which precisely captures the depth and angulation of the implants in the final impression, was seated and tightened into place. After bonding the individual sections of the IVJ together, a final im- pression was made using an open-tray

Dental Tribune U.S.Edition

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