MADE BY HAND: WHEN NO-ONE CAN SEE THAT IT’S DENTAL TECHNOLOGY

Ioulianos Moustakis

Dental technology is the art of imitation to ensure that only patients know that their teeth are artificial and that they feel them to be their own. In this way, we earn our money and make everyone just that little bit happier: patients, dentists, and even ourselves to a degree. Recognition of this is motivation for our customers and ourselves. It does not simply drop from the sky, it is hard earned, sometimes only gained with great effort, between the clinic and the laboratory by placing mutual trust in the expertise of the other for the planning of treatments, the selected procedure, the materials used, and the treatment and fabrication procedures used.

DECEPTIVELY REAL FOR THOSE AROUND THE PATIENT

It isn’t just dentists and dental technicians who look at people’s mouths and teeth. These days just about everyone does it and many are happy to confess to doing so. Whether patients can confidently enjoy this gaze with artificial anterior teeth reveals if dental manufacturers and the laboratory have done their job well or not. The anterior teeth act as a calling card for verbal and non-verbal communication not just for hybrid dentures but also for all other removable restorations. The more life-like and thus natural they appear, the more difficult it is (for laypersons and that is what’s important!) to identify the artificial.

If the laboratory has sufficient substance here to adapt the shape and foundation, the more effective is the deception, e.g., to camouflage combination dentures and hybrid dentures. If the shapes and size of the range also coordinate, the surface texture creates a life-like light refraction, and incisal translucence effects are imitated as is the case with PhysioStar NFC⁺, then based on my observations of patient reactions and those of the people around them, the perfect illusion has been created.

Fig. 2: For lips and mouth, naturally real…
Fig. 3: …also from the palatal view

RED ESTHETICS: NATURAL APPEARANCE CREATED FROM THE INSIDE

Patients with hybrid denture restorations have had to endure a bit and would like to have a long-lived restoration and enamel that doesn’t chip. For this reason, I prefer to use intensive colors that are mixed into the denture base resin for staining dentures. This produces clean and outstanding craftsmanship and the effect is always produced from the inside. As a result of aging, enamel develops cracks and at some point it chips; everyone is aware of this but particularly the red esthetics must not be “brushed off” and bleached out over time. The PMMA-based AESTHETIC Intensive Colors make this possible because they are incorporated into the base resin during fabrication. This is more elaborate that applying stains but has excellent durability and is no longer something for patients to discuss with the dentist after a long period of wear.

Based on my experience, the following sequence is optimal for the coloring effect to be achieved from the inside: papillae, tooth roots, vestibular shield, labial frenulum and then just before finishing the fabrication, the base of the denture. I prefer shade 34 mixed with the AESTHETIC Intensive Colors yellow and white for the papillae and tooth roots. The characteristic marbling effect for the vestibular shield is best achieved if the resin dough is only lightly mixed with a spatula. Shade 34 and the intensive colors red,
brown, blue, and pink are mixed together.

Fig. 5+6: Coloring from the inside so that enamel does not chip