Prosthodontics - Dentapreg Bridge

The basic concept of modern restorative and reconstructive dentistry is to protect the remaining sound tooth tissue.

When missing tooth structure or teeth are replaced, minimal biologic risk should be involved to reestablish function and esthetics. The proven reliability and durability of complete-crown metal ceramics has made them the method of choice for posterior singletooth restorations and fixed partial denture (FPD). However, this restoration required considerable reduction of tooth structure.

Growing use of adhesive technique and preservation of dental tissues have greatly impacted on conservative tooth preparation design. The development of fibre-reinforced composite (FRC) technology and all-ceramic systems has opened the potential for fabrication of metal-free restorations with durability and good esthetics.

The reduced invasiveness of these resin-bonded FPDs makes them an appealing alternative to conventional preparations. This advantage is emphasized in cases where the residual dentition exhibits low caries activity.

Dentapreg™ Bridge, thanks to its outstanding mechanical properties and variety of shapes and fiber architecture, allows to follow a minimum invasivity principle: the preparation for bridge retention will exclusively be determined by the shape and size of previous cavity.

Types of Bridge Retainers

• Complete crown
• Partial crown
• Onlay
• Inlay
• Groove
• Slot
• Non invasive/extracoronal – wings
• Non invasive/extracoronal – splint (Rochette´s splint)
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Biomechanics of the Bridge Framework

Primary roles of bridge framework are:

• To carry the pontic
• To shift the load applied to pontic during mastication to abutment teeth.

The major portion of masticatory forces shifted by bridgework from pontic to abutment teeth act verticaly. Therefore the bridgework is subject to deflection. It creates compression in upper part of the structure and tension in lower part of the structure. This type of stress requires to put substructure (Dentapreg™ Bridge strip) in the lower part of the bridge framework. There are also peeks of shear stress in the interproximal area between abutment teeth and pontic. In order to minimize these peeks it is recommended to form a small curvature with Dentapreg™ strip.

Typology of Bridges Made of Dentapreg™

Retentions

Extracoronal retentions:

• Complete crown
• Partial crown

Intracoronal retentions with reduced invasivity

• Onlay
• Inlay
• Slot

Extracoronal non invasive retentions

• Wing
• Splint (Rochette´s Bridge)

Symetry of Retentions

• Bridge with one type of retention (uniform retention)
• Bridge with two types of retention (combined retention)

Durability

• Permanent bridges
• Semipermanent bridges
• Provisional bridges