Implant and crowns enhance aesthetics after dental abscess causes tooth loss
This patient had damaged a front tooth as a child many years ago. At the time, the standard of care was to restore the damaged tooth with a porcelain-to-metal crown and to place a crown on the adjacent tooth to make a match. Since the original crowns had been placed, the patient’s teeth had changed color and translucence, and the original crowns no longer matched her natural teeth. She also developed an infection around the root tip of the damaged tooth and ended up losing the front tooth.
Post-treatment photo: custom porcelain crowns over 3 teeth and one implant.
Lab model, Front. Custom zirconium abutment matches shape of prepared teeth.
Lab model, Occlusal view. Custom zirconium abutment matches shape of prepared teeth
Lab view of 4 custom porcelain crowns, Occlusal view.
We placed a titanium implant in the site of the missing tooth and fit the implant with an immediate custom abutment (the connector between an implant and a crown); we also placed temporary crowns on the other front three teeth.
After four months of healing, the implant was restored with a Zirconium custom abutment, and the custom abutment and three natural teeth were restored together with four beautiful all-ceramic crowns. The custom abutment is the key to the final lifelike aesthetic outcome, as it creates a brightness that is illuminated from the inside of the porcelain crown, and reflects up into the gum tissue.
Note the view illustrating how light reflects from the porcelain – we used a graphite pencil to help illustrate how modifying the final contours (done in the mouth) could really bring symmetry to the final result.
Extreme close up showing custom layered porcelain blends for lifelike smile
For more cases like this, see our FlickR page at https://www.flickr.com/photos/drcaughey/sets/