Fully digital workflow for retrofitting a new crown to an existing removable partial denture.

Abstract

A fully digital technique for retrofitting a new crown to a removable partial denture (RPD) is presented. The conventional crown preparation was followed by intraoral scanning of the preparation, the antagonists, and the occlusal relationship and by scanning the RPD both in situ and outside the oral cavity. All the standard tessellation language (STL) files were indexed in a design software program, and the new crown was designed. After conventional dynamic adaptation against the antagonist teeth in the software program, the existing RPD was designated as the antagonist cast, and a second regular static adaptation was performed. This straightforward approach produced a crown which fit the occlusal rest and reciprocating arm without sending the existing prosthesis to the dental laboratory.