CEREC Makes Crowns Easier

CEREC Technology Makes Dental Crowns Easy

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 9:21 AM

This device builds a perfect crown in only seconds.

If you've had a broken tooth, you're all too familiar with the arduous task of getting a dental crown. The tooth has to be drilled, then a mold is made and sent away to a lab to be made. A temporary crown is placed on the tooth until the permanent one comes in, at which time the patient must return for another appointment, and sometimes that crown doesn't fit right and you have to return once again.

Model Photo

Cosmetic dentist Dr. Bill Dorfman demonstrated new CEREC technology live on The Doctors. The system eliminates the need for all of the return visits by milling a new crown in about 30 seconds. Using digital and wireless technology, the physician takes a digital photograph of the tooth and the computer instantly renders a model that becomes the pattern for the crown. The milling machine is in the office and when the dentist sends the information to the machine, it chisels your crown from strong, color matched porcelain material and in only seconds.
Once the crown is made, the dentist simply cements it to the tooth and uses a blue laser light to cure the cement so it hardens right away. The entire process from beginning to end can have you in and out of the dentist's office in only 30 minutes.



If you would like more information on CEREC please visit www.drjamesmiller.com/cerec.html

Advantages of CEREC vs Traditional Crowns

Advantages of CEREC Dental Crowns

If you have a tooth that is need of a dental crown, whether the tooth broke or has an existing filling that is large and needs replacing, you do have a choice in how the dental crown is made.  There are two ways in which a dental crown can be made, by a lab, or by CEREC. 

The most obvious advantage of CEREC dental crowns is the speed in which it is made.  CEREC crowns are fabricated and cemented in one appointment.  Traditional lab fabricated dental crowns take up to 2 weeks to be made and cemented.  What does this mean for you? With CEREC crowns you are done in one visit to the dentist, with lab fabricated crowns it will take at least two appointments and sometimes more. 

With CEREC crowns, since the final crown is finished that day, you do not have to deal with temporary crowns.  Temporary crowns are made of a plastic material that are made while the permanent crown is fabricated.  Temporary crowns have a tendency to fall off because a weak cement is used in order to remove it when the permanent crowns are seated.  This can lead to additional visits to the dentist to have it recemented.  Also, temporary crowns do not fit perfectly, this can lead to sensitive teeth while the temporary crown is in your mouth.

CEREC crowns do not require impressions.  You know, the goopy, nasty tasting stuff us dentists use to make molds of your teeth.  Instead, CEREC uses a special camera to take optical images of the teeth, the computer then constructs a digital model of your teeth in which the dental crown is designed.

The optical image is captured and CEREC computer makes
a digital model of the teeth in which the dental crown is
designed.

A crown fabricated with CEREC is about convenience.  One stop and the final crown is done!

Dr. James Miller is an Arizona licensed dentist. His dental practice is located in Scottsdale Arizona. Besides CEREC, Dr. Miller uses dental lasers, Invisalign, and digital x rays. Dr. Miller is dedicated to using technology that makes the patient experience as enjoyable as possible.

For more information on how a CEREC crown is made click on the following link: www.drjamesmiller.com/cerec_procedure.html

Welcome to CEREC Single Visit Crowns

I am so excited to talk about CEREC.  As a general dentist, I have been offering CEREC single visit crowns for 4 years.  My intention of this blog is to inform people, and show people, the wonderful service of CEREC crowns.  I will get into the technical aspects of how CEREC works, software, milling, materials, bonding, etc. in future posts.  For the first post, I would just like to show a case I literally just finished.  The patient has had massive silver amalgam filling when the patient was younger, and now the teeth are starting to breakdown and fracture.  A tooth really needs a crown when the size of the filling is equal to or greater than 50% of the biting surface.  The reason is when a filling gets to be this size or larger, the tooth is half as strong and the risk of a cusp fracturing is very high (especially in back teeth).  Where they will fracture we do not know.  The worst case scenario is the tooth fracturing into the root, when this happens the tooth is hopeless and would require extraction.  A CEREC crown will act like the rings around a barrel.  It will hold the natural tooth together preventing further fracturing. So, lets get to the case. As you see above the large silver fillings are actually showing through the natural tooth, this is a cosmetic concern as well.

An image from the biting surface reveals very large silver fillings.  We planned on placing two CEREC single visit crowns and one tooth colored composite filling on the tooth in the middle.  Under a local anesthetic we removed the silver amalgam.  Using the CEREC aquistion unit we then made optical images of the teeth. The optical images will be made into computerized models of the teeth on the computer where the CEREC crowns are designed. After designing the CEREC crowns on the computer the appropriate shade of tooth is selected and the CEREC crown is milled out of a solid block of porcelain. This can take anywhere from 5-12 minutes depending upon the size of the CEREC crown. After the CEREC crown has been milled, it is tried in the mouth to ensure a proper fit.  Then we glaze the porcelain to achieve a smooth shiny finish.  The crown is then bonded to the tooth.  As you can see by the image below of the bonded CEREC single visit crowns the aesthetic result is great.  The precise fit of the CEREC crowns are, in my opinion, superior to lab fabricated crowns.

Now for a side by side comparison of before and after of the CEREC single visit crown. P.S. this procedure start to finish took me two hours. Feel free to post any comments or questions, etc.

                                                  

Dr. Miller is an Arizona licensed general dentist.
His practice is located in Scottsdale Arizona. To read more about the CEREC procedure click on the following link http://www.drjamesmiller.com/cerec_procedure.html