Archive for August, 2009
Dentium Superline - My First Experience
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on August 20th, 2009
A new design by Dentium - the Superline, boasts a number of advantages over other implants. You can see some of the highly favourable characteristics of the implant in the picture below.

As an implant practitioner, I find these characteristics very helpful to my successful placement of implants. Unlike their European counterparts, many Korean manufacturers are very receptive to user feedback. For this reason, we see their designs evolving and improving much faster than many US and European systems. Of course, some of the European manufacturers are learning their lesson, but at the moment, they can’t beat the Koreans in terms of pricing.
I placed my first Dentium Superline yesterday. As I didn’t carry out the procedure at my own clinic, I do not have ready access to radiographic records that I can publish.
The patient was a lady in her late 50s. 2 months ago, I extracted her lower right molar which held a fractured post crown. As the patient has delayed extraction for years, a considerable amount of soft tissue has formed around the tooth fragments. I removed the tooth fragments completely without surgery and let the wound heal for 2 month.
Upon entry yesterday, I discovered that the defect left by the diseased tooth was still present. I cleaned out all the remnant soft tissue and the irregularly shaped defect was almost 6mm across the widest part. I drilled into the defect to a depth of 8mm from the crestal bone. The inferior dental nerve was more than 1cm deep.

After finishing the apical end of the hole with a 5mm drill, I passively checked the diameter of the coronal (top) part of the hole with a 7mm drill. The top part of the hole was just shy of 7mm. I then asked for a 7×8mm implant. It went into smoothly and seated firmly at a torque of almost 50Ncm.
Dentium’s implants come without fixture mounts. It could be an advantage or a disadvantage. When placing multiple implants, the surgeon would want to align them. This can be a little difficult without fixture mounts. For single implants, it’s not a problem at all. The mount becomes a liability when the implant does not have much initial stability due to poor quality bone. Removing the mount may disturb the implant and cause displacement.
With the amount of initial stability I had in this case, I confidently placed a healing abutment and sutured the site. I’ll report on the restoration part in about 6 weeks.
Fast Aesthetics
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on August 7th, 2009
Below is a patient who has just completed orthodontic treatment. The orthodontist deliberately left gaps between the patient’s front teeth because his teeth were naturally undersized and would look much better and more natural if they were bigger.

The technology behind immediate temporary crowns/veneers is not new. However, the task is demanding on the part of the dentist, especially if the temporary crowns/veneers muct be fabricated within a clinical session. Here is a case where the dentist waxed up the 4 crowns/veneers on the patient’s casts within minutes.

A block of wax was placed on the patient’s cast and teeth that approximate the desired size and shape were carved out immediately. A template is fabricated from this wax work, plastic material was flowed into the template and placed over the undersized teeth.

All this took less than one hour. The patient’s casts were sent to the lab which took a week to complete the emax crowns and veneers. The results could have been better if we had a more skillful ceramist. The patient was satisfied.

Root Canal Amnesia
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on August 7th, 2009
In the heartlands where price sensitivity is highest, root canal treatment is probably the most common necessary treatment that is rejected by the patient because of cost factors. For someone with no income, paying $300-$1000 for root canal can be difficult. It’s OK if the patient is willing to extract the tooth. Problems arise when the patient insists on keeping the tooth but is only willing to pay for a filling, thinking that root canal is only indicated as an excuse for the dentist to charge more.
This puts everyone in a no-win situation. Many heartland dentists reluctantly fill up teeth which should be endodontically treated first. When there is no pain, the patient assures the dentist that he is OK with a temporary filling and will do something about it later. When the patient gets pain afterwards, they forget all about the filling being temporary and they having been advised to do root canal previously.







