CAD/CAM Personalised Abutment Features and Benefits

Currently, most implant abutments are finished abutments supplied by implant manufacturers. These finished abutments are manufactured industrially using the same dimensional standards, and finished abutments of the same type have exactly the same shape, size and dimensions. Finished abutments need to go through a series of complicated hand-made procedures such as professional prosthetic design cap mapping, ordering of suitable straight or angled abutments, grinding of unsuitable abutments, etc., in order to produce abutments that are roughly suitable for the patient's tooth position conditions, and then finally to implement the upper part of the implant restorations.

The implant situation in each patient's mouth is different, and this variability results in many cases where there is no very suitable finished abutment to use. Because implant manufacturers stipulate that finished abutments cannot be returned or exchanged after unpacking, and because implant abutments are often out of stock due to their high price and low inventory, clinics or hospitals need to take up a large amount of money to stock up on finished abutments.

As implant technology and dental CAD/CAM technology become more and more mature, CAD/CAM personalised abutments are increasingly being used instead of finished abutments due to their irreplaceable advantages. 

CAD/CAM personalised abutments are manufactured through computerised 3D scanning, taking optical impressions, CAD design with professional implant software and CAM cutting with high-precision 5-axis CNC machine tools. This eliminates many intermediate steps, avoids complicated manual errors, speeds up the production efficiency, reduces the costs, improves the accuracy and increases the success rate of the implants.

Three major functions of CAD/CAM personalised abutment

Personalised Angle: The CAD/CAM personalised abutment can be set to a more appropriate angle according to the patient's oral cavity, correcting deviations in implant position and angle, making the surgical execution more precise and reducing the surgical time as well as the patient's discomfort.

Personalised gingival height: the system can set a personalised gingival height, each patient's gingival condition is different, deeper or shallower gingival penetration will affect the surgical effect. Digital information avoids such problems, the system directly obtains the appropriate bonding interface, which can more effectively protect the health of the implant.

Personalised gingival pattern: With the pre-information, the system can design the most suitable gingival pattern according to the patient's overall oral condition. The shape of the soft tissue is preserved to the maximum extent and is sufficient to support the dental implant.

Problems encountered in the application of finished abutments:

1. The anatomical form of the finished abutment is round, which is very different from that of a real tooth. the CAD/CAM personalised abutment resembles the form of a scaled-down tooth, and therefore supports the crown of the restoration with a reduced risk of chipping.

2. The restorations made from finished abutments cannot achieve the ideal functional and aesthetic shape, such as the most common small neck, restorations are prone to black triangles and so on. The CAD/CAM personalised abutment can shape the implant cuff perfectly to achieve the ideal anatomical recovery.

3. After the implant cuff is shaped, the gingival height is inconsistent, and even if the finished abutment can be ground through the gingival portion, it cannot achieve the ideal state of consistency with the gingiva. This affects the aesthetics and the bonding agent cannot be thoroughly cleaned. The CAD/CAM personalised abutment can be designed to be in perfect alignment with the gingival height to create a gingival pattern that is both aesthetically pleasing and healthy.

4. Some patients' gingival penetration depth is very large, there is no suitable finished abutment, and CAD / CAM personalised titanium abutment solves such a problem.

5. When the gums are thin, the colour of the finished metal abutment will be transmitted, and the gums will appear to return to the green and other unnatural situations, while CAD/CAM personalized zirconia abutment can solve the problem of restoring the aesthetic effect of the gingival area.

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