

The traditional method requires the patient to place a tray with a thick, gooey material - called alginate - in their mouth and hold for two to five minutes until the material sets. If you've ever had a conventional impression, you immediately understand the benefits of a digital system. With CAD/CAM technology, the dental professional can sometimes complete all these steps in a single visit, allowing for fewer disruptions in your schedule. Using traditional laboratory methods, your dentist or prosthodontist would prepare your tooth, make an impression, and send the impression to a lab to create the final restoration. Some of the significant advantages include: The use of CAD/CAM technology provides benefits not only for dental professionals but also for patients. Still, CAD/CAM requires less time and effort than traditional laboratory methods. This whole process could take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours, depending on the case's complexity. Finally, the restoration is permanently placed in your mouth to complete your smile.

The restoration is stained or glazed to look more natural before being polished. Next, a milling machine takes the design and shapes the crown, veneer, inlay, onlay, or bridge from a single block of ceramic. With those 3D images, the dental professional will use the CAD software to design the final restoration. Next, an optical scanner will digitally capture the tooth preparation and surrounding teeth to create a 3D custom image. Your dental professional will prepare the site for your restoration by removing all decay or portions of the structurally unsound tooth. Here's what to expect from a restoration procedure using CAD/CAM. Both dental practices and laboratories use CAD/CAM technology to construct restorations like crowns, inlays, onlays, veneers, bridges, dentures, and implant-supported restorations from high-strength ceramic. Understanding Digital Dentistry and the CAD/CAM ProcessĬAD/CAM dentistry describes the software that makes it possible for dental professionals to perform complex restorations faster, more efficiently, and sometimes more accurately.
