Dr. Enrico DiVito is a general and cosmetic dentist who specializes in laser dentistry at the Arizona Center for Laser Dentistry in North Scottsdale. A graduate of Arizona State University and the University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco, Dr. DiVito returned to Arizona and established a private practice in 1980. He founded the Arizona Center for Laser Dentistry in 2007. Here, he explains what CEREC restoration is, and how using it can benefit patients.
CEREC restoration is a new technology that we are really using to get great results for patients. The acronym itself stands for Chairside Economical Restorations of Esthetic Ceramic. With the use of this technique, we have been able to change the way people are fitted for crowns and turn what was once a multi-week process into something that takes just a matter of hours.
Typically, if a patient needed a cap or a crown in the past. he’d have to come into the office, get completely anesthetized—numbed up in the mouth—and then have a dentist drill or file down his teeth before taking an impression. Of course, even the impression itself could be tricky to get, since it required putting goopy stuff that’s easy to gag on inside the patient’s mouth while the impression was taken. From there, patients would need to have something temporary put on, and be asked to come back in a few weeks to have their first crown tested and tried on again. If you were lucky, at that time, then the crown would fit and you could go home. But if not, then you would have to start the whole process over again. There were just so many steps, and so many places for something to go wrong.
Thanks to CEREC, though, we have revolutionized the process and made it so much easier. With CEREC, the entire process of getting a crown is done in one visit, without drills or temporary crowns, even. In fact, because the process is done with a laser, we do not even need to numb a patient’s mouth. The process is pain-free and done within an hour to an hour and a half—start to finish.
Rather than the longer, traditional method, CEREC works easily. By using a computer that we have in our office and hooking that up to a special camera with laser technology, I am able to get an image from inside the patient’s mouth instantly. Based on that image, which has been uploaded to a special computer with sophisticated software, we can go ahead and generate a 3D model of the mouth as a whole. I am actually able to rotate that model on the computer, and use it to create a new crown that is custom for the patient.
Using this innovative software gives me, as a dentist, the ability to design the crown, form the seal, and see how the crown will fit—all from the computer. I can also make adjustments on the size, the shape, and the contact points of the crown as well. Also, I can easily make the area between the teeth tighter or looser depending on the specifications I want. This is an extremely accurate way to make crowns—so much better and more precise than the old way of using goop to make impressions.
Like I said, we can do the entire process in a matter of hours. That includes making the crown itself. From inside the office, we are generating the tooth out of solid porcelain without any flaws. So once I have finished designing the tooth to all my preset specifications—such as certain colors, shapes, and sizes that are determined by the patient—what happens next is that we simply put a ceramic block into the milling machine at the office, which will then cut and shape the porcelain to fit the patient’s mouth exactly.
Once the milling machine has cut the porcelain into a crown, that crown will be taken to be glazed. It is at that time that we can add additional characteristics to make the tooth look move alive and natural. So this is a process that is superior to any laboratory crown and all the old, conventional crown-fitting methods.
So in just about an hour, we are able to get patients entirely fitted for a new crown and have it put in their mouth thanks to CEREC restoration. It is no wonder that so many patients are so excited about the process, since it really is revolutionizing the way dental crowns are done.
The information in the article is not intended to substitute for the medical expertise and advice of your healthcare provider. We encourage you to discuss any decisions about treatment or care with an appropriate healthcare provider.
