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Shaping Tomorrow’s Smiles with Today’s Tech
It's high time to invest in technology that can set your practice up for ongoing growth and success, including the latest tools for scanning, designing, milling, and 3D printing high-quality restorations, as well as the materials that confidently cement them into place
In a world buzzing with automation and artificial intelligence (AI), traditional wisdom has a knack for enduring resilience. Need an example? “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” That may be true in some cases, but when it comes to the tools and techniques that drive your crown and bridge workflows, replacing something long before it breaks can unlock a world of possibilities.
Imagine what you could do with less chair time, fewer lab bills, faster treatment times, and a better patient experience? In that context, waiting until something is truly broken has the potential to squander your practice's, well, potential.
And that’s where the digital workflow comes in. While the traditional path to crowns, bridges, and other lab-fabricated restorations may be a well-oiled machine in your office, it also can feel like a game of hurry up and wait. Practices that leverage intraoral scanners, design software, chairside mills, and 3D printers, on the other hand, have discovered a faster route to treatment. For some, that path has made all the difference.
“The evolution of 3D printing in dentistry has been truly remarkable since its inception, with a shift from primarily printing models and surgical guides to a wider array of applications,” noted Isaac Tawil, DDS, MS, who uses the AccuFab-CEL 3D printer from SHINING 3D Dental in his Brooklyn, NY, dental office. “Some key advancements include direct printing of dental provisionals and restorations, orthodontic appliances, bite splints, and dentures.”
With a general practice focused on implant therapy, Dr. Tawil uses his 3D printer to fabricate surgical guides for full-arch implant cases and to create same-day provisional restorations for his patients in just 25 minutes—15 for printing and 10 for washing and curing.
The Choice Is Yours
But what about chairside milling? According to Dr. Tawil, it’s not going anywhere. “At the moment, printing is not replacing milling for final restorations; however, 3D printing materials are improving in strength, and in the not-so-far-off future, we may see a dramatic shift in how we finalize our patients' restorations with 3D printing.”
When considering either modality for your practice, it’s important to consider that while both can create temporary and final restorations such as crowns and bridges, the difference between them comes down to 2 factors: manufacturing and materials.
“While milling involves the removal of material from a solid block using computer-controlled cutting tools to shape the restoration, 3D printing builds objects layer by layer from digital models,” advised Dr. Tawil. “Milling commonly calls for materials like ceramics or metal alloys, while 3D printing uses resin-based materials that are light cured, which fosters design flexibility and can yield faster production of complex shapes.”
The Magic of Zirconia
Studies show that roughly 28% of dentists have a chairside mill in their practice, including Dr. Anthony Ponzio, whose Oak Park, IL, office has been leveraging Dentsply Sirona’s CEREC System for over a decade. During that time, much has changed, with every piece of the CAD/CAM puzzle—scanning, designing, and milling—leveraging some level of smart automation.
For example, there are lightning-fast intraoral scanners that require little-to-no training to achieve an accurate impression, intuitive software that uses AI to create fast and precise crown designs, and smart milling units that sense the material inside and automatically choose the right tools for the job. And then there’s the milling materials themselves.
“The ability to mill same-day zirconia is huge,” noted Dr. Ponzio, who frequently uses CEREC MTL, a strong, multitransitional layered zirconia with a fast and easy workflow. “In our office, we can manufacture and sinter zirconia restorations in 25 to 30 minutes—a process that in the past could take up to 24 hours.”
He added that his team loves being hands-on with the technology, and that once the scan and design are completed, they take over the process completely—from milling and sintering the restoration to polishing and sandblasting.
“When the crown is ready, I go back in the room to cement it into place, and we’re done!” said Dr. Ponzio, who teaches dentists around the world about the benefits of same-day dentistry. “Patients are trusting us to take care of them, and in return, we need to make sure we’re staying up to date and using the best technology available to do that.”