Dental Bridge | Types of dental bridges with medstom, plastic dental Bridge and Adhesivedental and Whole-metal, Blend with plastic or ceramic, Zirconium
Dental Bridge.
It often happens that failure to treat the complications of dental caries (periodontitis and gangrene) leads to the loss of one or more teeth.
This requires immediate repair of the defects.
Most often this is achieved by making dental bridges. They are preferred by patients because of the good results and the relatively good price. It is necessary to make the right choice and good planning in accordance with the needs and physiological characteristics of the patient before starting work.
There are several types of dental bridges:
• Plastic dental Bridge
this type of bridges are used for temporary restoration until the final and permanent structures are made. They are made entirely of plastic and serve to cover and protect already sanded teeth. They are also used for temporary restoration of the function, aesthetics and phonetics of the teeth.
The disadvantage of them is that they are rougher, significantly harder, thicker and of poor aesthetic value.
• Adhesivedental dental Bridge
this type of bridges are made of fiber. Recently, they have been preferred for the restoration of areas where one tooth is missing.
The advantage of them is that they do not require filing of the adjacent teeth, good aesthetics are achieved and with proper maintenance by the patient they can be used for a relatively long time.
They are made within one visit to the dentist.
When the patient has poor hygiene, carious dentition, with severely damaged clinical crowns adjacent to the missing tooth, with bad habits, bruxism, the choice of this type of restoration is inappropriate.
• Whole-metal dental bridges
Whole-metal dental bridges are made of gray metal or precious alloy, e.g. gold. Grays are of color with good strength, but with low aesthetic value. They are preferred because of the low price. Precious metal bridges are more commonly used in patients with a proven allergy. The disadvantage of them is the poor aesthetics and the relatively short period of use due to the lack of sufficient strength of the material.
• Dental Bridge Blend with plastic or ceramic
Blend bridges are a common choice of many patients mainly because of their low cost. They can be blend-plastic (so-called C + B) or blend-ceramics. They are made of metal, and only the outer (buccal) parts are covered with plastic or ceramic. In this case, the chewing areas are metallic and visible, which is why the aesthetics are unsatisfactory.
A relatively good choice is for recovery in the upper jaw in the distal areas, as there are no visible metal surfaces.
The disadvantage of these bridges is that the connection between the metal and the plastic is not very good and often breaks or falls.
In addition, the plastic ages and changes color. Very often when consuming solid food, using hard brushes and bad habits leads to wiping its surface.
In turn, it becomes retention, which leads to plaque retention, difficult cleaning and odor. Sometimes the result is common inflammatory diseases of the gums.
With blended ceramics, these disadvantages are avoided and the results are much better.
• Metal-ceramic dental bridges
these are one of the most commonly used bridge structures with good aesthetics and relatively low cost.
The technology is the production of a metal cap covered with ceramics. This type of bridges have a relatively good aesthetics and strength and can be applied both in the frontal area and in the distal areas. They do not retain bacterial plaque and thus maintain good dental hygiene.
This type of bridges allow for good design of occlusal relationships and achieve maximum results.
There are also some disadvantages, ceramics are relatively harder than dental tissues and sometimes lead to abrasion of the antagonists (opposite teeth).
This requires a preliminary assessment of the patient's condition in order to avoid this inconvenience.
Another disadvantage is when the ceramic is applied in only one layer (so-called monochromatic ceramics). This leads to poor aesthetics, as the teeth look rough and unnatural.
Sometimes, when there is no ceramic coating in the neck area, direct contact of the metal with the soft tissues (gums) occurs. There is also interaction, oxidation, separation of metal ions. This leads to discoloration of the gums in the cervical region with the appearance of a characteristic gray color.
Aesthetics are disturbed and this is unacceptable, especially if it concerns the frontal part of the dentition.
• Press ceramics dental Bridge (pure porcelain)
this type of bridges are made entirely of ceramics. The lack of metal in them is the reason for their high aesthetic value.
The main advantage is that structures with a very small thickness between 0.5-0.3 mm can be made.
This allows bridges to be made with minimal removal of tooth tissue during filing.
There is high transparency and sometimes with stained teeth this can lead to a problem.
It is well known that bridges are subjected to bending and twisting forces. Press ceramics and its technology are not designed to withstand high torsional forces and this often leads to breakage.
For this reason, it is advisable to use more for single crowns or bridges with fewer teeth.
• Zirconium dental bridges
the so-called zirconium structures. They are gradually displacing the mass metal-ceramic bridges.
The reason is the growing demands of patients and their desire for good aesthetics.
Zirconia is a grayish-white metal similar to titanium. It is widely used in production as various corrosion-resistant alloys. It is the basis of zirconium dioxide used in dentistry. One of the biggest advantages is the high strength, up to 1000 mPa, aesthetics, no corrosion, more gentle filing (less tooth tissue is removed).
Zirconium constructions are:
- Made entirely of zirconia;
- Zirconium serving as a cap on which ceramics (ceramics on zirconium) are placed. Due to the poor aesthetics, the former can be used in the posterior parts of the dentition in the restoration of masticatory teeth.
The second group has a high aesthetic value and high strength and is applicable in the fontal areas.
The high price is probably the only disadvantage of these bridges. Their workmanship is very precise due to the use of CAD-CAM technology.
This allows extremely precise construction of bridge structures.
