CEREC® Implant Options for Missing Teeth

The CEREC® technology allows dentists to design and fabricate dental restorations in-house. With Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics, dentists can perform dental restorations in a relatively short amount of time. Without this process, a patient generally has to wait for a dental lab to fabricate their restoration. This forces the patient to go through multiple dental visits before they finally walk out of the dentist’s office with fully functional teeth.

CEREC® employs computer-aided design and manufacture software to create dental restorations. Recently, this technology has advanced to the level of fabricating multiple components for implant-supported teeth.

CEREC® technology and dental implants

Consider a scenario where a patient needs one or more dental implants. CEREC® technology can help the treatment along by reducing the waiting time for the fabrication of the abutment and artificial teeth. Here is how:

• 82nd St. Dental will evaluate a prospective patient to determine if they are a candidate for dental implants. The evaluation will involve medical imaging like dental X-rays.
• If the patient qualifies for dental implants, the dentist will take a 3-D image of the mouth, specifically the section with the missing teeth.
• They will feed the two sets of images into a computer with CAD software, which will render a model of the patient’s mouth.
• The dentist will use the model to design the components of the artificial tooth, namely the abutment and the restoration.
• The patient will go through dental implant surgery and wait for the implant to fuse with the surrounding jawbone.
• After the bone has fused and healed, the patient will see the dentist, who will attach the abutment to the implant. This will be the second procedure.
• After the gums heal around the abutment, the patient will return to the dentist for the restoration, which could be a crown or a bridge.

For some patients, all these steps can be combined into a single procedure. This kind of dental implant procedure is known as a same-day implant. In both these scenarios, the patient will have the different components designed, fabricated and fitted in a single dentist’s visit.

Cutting-edge advancements in CEREC® technology

Some dentists use this technology to fabricate zirconia dental implants. Other dentists use it for the entire process of dental implant treatment.

CEREC® can do much more than allow dentists to design perfectly aligned artificial teeth, however. The software can use a 3D model and live images of the patient’s mouth to guide a dentist through each step of dental implant surgery. Compared to freehand dental implant surgery, this guided implant surgery is considered to be much more precise.

CEREC® technology makes dental implant surgery easier on the patient

Conventional dental implant procedures take a lot of time, much of which is spent waiting: Waiting for the implant to integrate with the bone tissue in the jaw. Waiting for the dental lab to fabricate the abutment. Then there is more waiting as the gums heal after the abutment is installed, and a little more waiting as the dental lab fabricates the crown. CEREC® makes sure that the only time you spend on dental implants is the time needed to heal. Dentists can use this innovative technology to restore your smile as fast as possible.

Request an appointment with 82nd St. Dental.

Check out what others are saying about our services on Yelp: Read our Yelp reviews.