Same Day Crowns
Dubai is one of the fastest cities in the world. The demand from our patients to finish work in a single visit is huge! Our patients come from all over the world, travelling farther just so they can have their dental work finished in as few visits as possible. Using cutting edge technology from the CEREC (CEramic REConstruction) system it’s possible to have both ceramic and zirconia crowns, inlays, onlays, bridges and even Implant crowns to be delivered in a single visit. How are same day crowns even possible? How does a process that used to take a few days and in the case of implants – a few months – now be completed in just a few hours? Read on to find out!
Scanning – The first step is to scan an existing old crown or broken tooth if possible. This gives the planning software a kind of “template” to design the new crown. This is called a “biocopy” and takes about a minute or two. The next step is to prepare and shape the tooth in the normal way – about a mm of the tooth is trimmed down to make sure the crown has enough bulk and strength to last a long time. We use a proprietary kind of ceramic called e-max which is time tested with millions of restorations all around the world and multi-shaded Zirconia which is unmatched in strength and durability. Both these materials require a thickness of only 1mm to fabricate predictable, long lasting crowns. Once the “prep” is complete, a second scan is done to capture the new shape of the tooth. – Time taken – about 45 minutes
Designing – The second step is planning and designing the crown. The Artificial Intelligence of the CEREC system uses advanced algorithms to match the shape of the new crowns to the adjacent teeth – or it uses the biocopy taken in the first scan to design the crown in a few minutes. Human intervention is minimal – there are thousands of template combinations present in the database to make the crown as natural and esthetic as possible. The planning dentist needs only to fine-tune and make minor modifications to the proposed design. The whole designing process takes about 5 to 10 minutes.
Manufacture – This is where the beauty of the system truly shines. Using a seamless digital workflow, the CEREC system wireless transmits the data in seconds to the milling machine. The CEREC MC XL is a robot with dual motors to flawlessly mill the crown from a pre-cut ceramic block. The milling or grinding process takes about 10 to 15 minutes at most and the crown is ready for finishing.
Sintering or Glazing – This final step is where the material is heated at around a 1000 degrees in a device called the SPEEDFURNACE. The high temperatures change the crystal structure of the ceramics making them super hard and shiny and bring out the natural life-like characteristics of real teeth. Some stains are then put on for even more natural effects if desired. This part of the process takes around half an hour or so.
Sand blasting and Cleaning – The final crown is sand-blasted on the inner surfaces to increase the roughness so the bonding cement has a better “grip” on the crown. The crown is cleaned and then checked in the mouth for fit. If everything is satisfactory, the crown is cleaned again for final cementation. Time taken – 1 minute.
Delivery – The final crown is cemented on the tooth and all excess cement is removed. A final check is done for the bite comfort and the process is complete!
