At the the SameDay Teeth Suite in Leicester we see many patients who have lost their front teeth and of course, this can be very embarrassing for those patients because of course, they want to be able to have a confident smile without having to wear a denture or having teeth cut down adjacent to nothing to it which can affect the longevity of those teeth. Dental implants are a great solution for a lot of these cases.
One of the hardest things in dentistry is to match 1 tooth to another tooth in the front for two reasons:
Reason number 1:
Without planning the case it will be difficult to get a great result. When we are doing a front tooth dental implant we do everything on the models before we ever do it in the mouth. We will start by taking photographs and X-Rays and plan the case to make sure that we have enough bone, and we do CT scans to allow us to carry out a 3D simulation enabling us to exactly plan where we’re going to place the implant.
This is very important because if you place them in the wrong position, then the tooth would emerge from the wrong position. Therefore, it is very important to plan it in the right position so that we have end results which will look very good.
When planning the case we also use a guide which is essential because when you place the dental implant you want to place it in the right position .The guide is produced from the CT scan to allow us to carry out 3d placement. Without using a guide for a front tooth, you are just guessing where the dental implant should be. This is very important that it’s done with precision. In some cases, when we place a dental implant in the front, we may have to do extra procedures such as bone graft which is just artificial filler to replace any missing bone, or we may have to do some soft tissue grafting which is sometimes required to plump up the tissue.
All these type of procedures, in some cases, may be indicated and the reason why they may be required is to make sure that the implant lasts as long as possible but also to improve the final aesthetical results of the front tooth.
Reason number 2:
It is very difficult because of course you’re creating the similar characteristics of that tooth. This is all dependable on working with high quality technicians who have an artistic ability to make that tooth look like a tooth.
We find it important to make sure that the technician we use has artistic ability in making the tooth look like a tooth. We often see various types of crowns when people are smiling that look unaesthetic. They look too wide or too dark. They look monochromatic meaning they look like one color. They have no vitality or they have no depth of colour in them. Sometimes we may see crowns where the patient smiles and we see a metal margin which looks unaesthetical and this all comes down to the materials used, how it has been designed and also the artistic ability of the technician. We always make sure when doing front tooth implants we work with high quality technicians who know what they’re doing, have a great array of skill, and also postgraduate education which allows them to deliver amazing results when constructing that front tooth.
At the SameDay Teeth Suite, we arrange for the patient to meet our technician. We only use 2 technicians in this area, whom we have worked with for many years. We find them really effective and they produce great results for us. The patient will see the technician for a computerized shade match. This involves using computer technology to get an accurate shade match, but also what they do is a tooth shade map. They map out the tooth and on that tooth map, they map out the different colours of the different parts of the tooth.
This is very important when doing a front tooth. A lot of clinics just get a couple of shade tabs out. They go “ A1, A2, and that’s it”. What’s very important when you look at a tooth is that there are different shades on the tooth which need to be incorporated when designing the colour of the tooth and designing the tooth.
With all front tooth dental implants, and as with any implant system, there are various abutments which can be used such as cast abutments. Certain abutments are called stock abutments which are already abutments produced or we can make CAD/CAM abutments, which are abutments milled by computer technology.
For the front teeth, our implant experts prefer to use CAD CAM abutments. The reason being is that we get something called a better emergence profile. This means that the end crown looks as close as possible to your natural looking tooth. If we skimp on materials we’re using it will always affect the end results. With our front teeth this is very important, because this is the first thing our friends, colleagues and family members will see when we smile.
The final thing which goes on the abutment, is a crown. We cannot stress enough how important it is to use high quality materials for these crowns.
For more information and to see some front tooth before after dental implant cases watch the video below
- Porcelain bonded crowns
- E-Max crowns
- Zirconia crown
- Various other types of all ceramic crowns.
For the front teeth, we tend to use crowns which are all ceramic. This gets better end results but also allows us to have good vitality, so that when the light shines through it, there’s no grayness and also the tooth looks as life-like as possible.
Also, there are various types of crown which are:
- Cemented crowns , cemented on the abutment
- Screw retained crowns, in which case the crown and the abutment is fused together and then screwed into the dental implant.
We tend to do more of this, which is milled by CAD/CAM technology as well designed by computers to give us that great end result. The reason why we tend to use more screw retained crowns is because it doesn’t involve cementation of that crown where there’s always a risk that the cement may go underneath the gum, potentially cause gum issues. This is why, about 70 to 80% of the cases we tend to use screw retained crowns.
You can see that from our portfolio of cases that you can access via the gallery page here, what the end result could look like.