With the expectation for better masticatory efficiency, retention, and satisfaction, some patients prefer to replace their complete removable dental prosthesis with implant overdenture.
In such instances, the existing complete removable dental prosthesis may offer valuable diagnostic information during the fabrication of new implant overdenture.
A clinically satisfactory complete removable dental prosthesis can be duplicated
to preserve the diagnostic information on the desired esthetic outcomes, tooth size and arrangement, occlusal schemes, contour of the denture extension, and intaglio surface.
The duplicated denture can serve as a trial prosthesis or a custom tray to make a definitive impression and record maxillomandibular interocclusal relationship.
A variety of techniques have been proposed to duplicate clinically satisfactory complete removable dental prosthesis.
Traditionally, denture duplication requires several steps, such as creating the mold with impression materials, pouring autopolymerizing resin into the mold, re-contouring, and polishing of duplicated prosthesis.
The development of digital technology facilitates this workflow. The existing denture can be digitalized by either an optical scanner or cone beam computed tomography (CBCT).
The Data Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) file produced by CBCT imaging can be converted to a standard tessellation language (STL) file format, and utilized in the computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) process.
With many advantages and rapid development, additive manufacturing (3D printing) has gained its popularity in dentistry.
Various materials include light-polymerizing resin, and even metal alloy can be 3D-printed to meet different clinical demands.
This technical report describes a digital workflow to fabricate an implant overdenture by duplicating an existing complete removable dental prosthesis using a digital workflow and fabricating the definitive prosthesis using 3D printing.
