One-Piece Dowel-Crown on Single Endosseous Implants

One-Piece Dowel-Crown on Single Endosseous Implants
September 2003
Ghorbani, Hamid DMD*; Pipko, Donald J. DMD, MDS**
Implant Dentistry: Volume 12(3) September 2003 pp 232-234
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Ghorbani, Hamid DMD*; Pipko, Donald J. DMD, MDS**
*Former Resident, Prosthodontic Residency Program, University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
**Professor, Associate Director, Prosthodontic Residency Program, University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Reprint requests and correspondence to:
Donald J. Pipko, DMD, MDS
University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine
2069 Salk Annex
Pittsburgh, PA 15261
Phone: (412) 648-8161
Fax: (412) 648-8850
E-mail: djp4@pitt.edu
Abstract TOP
The unitized (one-piece) dowel-crown technique described in this article uses routine clinical and laboratory procedures, minimizes clinical appointments, and provides asimplified prosthetic restoration for a single dental implant.
Numerous stock dental implant abutments are currently available, 1 all of which are screw retained to the dental implant fixture, and some of which are custom-fabricated screw-retained implant abutments. 2 The traditional prosthodontic management on the implant abutment is the fabrication of a crown restoration that is either screw or cement retained. This article proposes a technique for a (unitized) one-piece dowel crown on an endosseous dental implant that is cement-retained. The retentive factors are the straight-serrated cemented dowel and ferrule on the neck of the implant. 3-5 The antirotational factor is the external or internal hex of the implant. 6
Technique TOP
Before the dental implant is uncovered, a cast dowel core is fabricated on the specific implant replica, which will be used in the transfer impression (Fig. 1). The collar from a plastic-gold collar castable custom abutment is used as a base for the casting (Nobel Biocore, Inc.). A serrated burnout plastic dowel pattern (Coltene/Whaledent, Inc.) is joined to the gold collar and the core buildup with pattern resin (GC Corporation). This custom-fabricated dowel core is used to process on an autopolymerizing resin for a provisional crown with a metal dowel and ferrule. The metal dowel-resin provisional restoration is not cemented into the implant; instead, it is bonded to the adjacent teeth or crowns with a light-activated resin. On the laboratory working cast, another unitized dowel core is waxed to a gold collar from a gold-plastic castable custom abutment. A casting is made in a ceramic compatible metal (Fig. 2). This casting provides the contour for support of the ceramic application and emergence profile (Figs. 3-5). The finished unitized (one-piece) dowel implant crown will be cemented to place with a composite-luting material (Resiment, Septodont Inc) for strength and permeability.
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