Streamlining and Simplifying Denture Fabrication with Digital Processes

New techniques and processes are allowing dentures to be designed using three-dimensional models of the patient’s oral structures. A prototype of the digitally designed denture can then be tried in and modified, if necessary, before production of the final denture. This approach streamlines, expedites, and simplifies the denture-making process, while achieving more consistently predictable results.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• understand the fundamental difference between digital and conventional denture fabrication. 

• explain how impression making and recording jaw relations can be combined in a single procedure within the digital denture-making workflow. 

• name one aspect of the digital denture process that must be well explained to patients in order to avoid confusion.

About the Author

Larry R. Holt, DDS, is Director of Clinical Education and Research at Drake Precision Laboratory in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is also a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the University of North Carolina School of Dentistry, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.