Dental technology revolutionizes fabrication of crowns

Martin Plassmeyer reclined in the dentist’s chair and vividly recalled the gag-inducing mouthful of modeling clay that has long been part of getting a new crown.

“The most irritating point (was) trying to open your mouth once the stuff has set and getting all the gunk out of it,” the 74-year-old Plassmeyer said.

Not this time.

Instead, a technician slipped a brace inside Plassmeyer’s cheeks to hold his mouth open as James Grant, D.D.S., waved a wand with a pulsating blue light inside his mouth and over his teeth.

Like magic, a three-dimensional picture of his teeth appeared on a video screen, giving the dentist a precise digital image of Plassmeyer’s mouth. Grant then e-mailed the image to a lab that would create Plassmeyer’s new crown.
“It’s clean, it’s fast and there’s no taste of gunk in your mouth,” Plassmeyer said.
He had just joined a growing number of dental patients benefiting from recent advances in dental technology. Patients are doing less gagging on goopy gunk, less bleeding and they are healing more quickly, thanks to new equipment Colorado Springs-area dentists are buying.

The new technology includes scanners like the one Grant is using, as well as lasers for surgery. Some are even buying the equipment to make new teeth in their offices.

“This is exciting — it makes dentistry fun again,” said Grant, a partner at Cheyenne Mountain Dental Group. “It’s kind of like a toy, but a toy that works.”

Last October, Grant invested $26,000 in a scanner produced by 3M that makes digital images of a patient’s teeth and the inside of the mouth.

The scanner, Grant said, is well worth the investment. The scan takes far less time than the old modeling clay, which required five minutes to harden and create an impression of a patient’s teeth.

Under the old process, a lab would use the impression to fabricate the fake tooth. The dentist then painstakingly fit it into the patient’s mouth.

The scanner produces a more accurate impression.

“It takes the guesswork out,” Grant said. “There’s no dentist out there who enjoys giving a crown that they have to sit there with the patient and grind and grind and grind and say: ‘How does the bite feel?’”

Four other dentists in Colorado Springs have even more expensive setups that let them scan teeth and then create crowns in their offices, said Darren Kaberna, a sales representative for Patterson Dental. Just six dentists in the state have the equipment, he said.

One trend-setting dentist, Kelly O’Neal, has invested $160,000 over the past four years into a scan-and-fabricate system.

He said it’s worth it for him to be able to scan a patient’s mouth and install the crown on the same day.

Dentists with the new system expect to recoup their investments within a few years just on their savings from lab fees.

Dentist Betty Jo Schope, who also has the new equipment, used to spend $10,000 a month to have fake teeth made, office manager Sue Funk said.

Joe Rota, a cosmetic dentist in Briargate, has a similar system that scans patients’ mouths, creates three-dimensional tooth models and even drills the crowns right in the office.

Before Rota bought the new equipment in January, he didn’t even try to treat most dental implant patients. The new system changed that because it shows him exactly where to drill to implant a crown.

It even shows him the correct angle to avoid nerve endings and make the patient’s mouth work correctly afterward.

“It’s less-invasive surgery,” Rota said. “The old way, we had to peel back the gum on both sides of the ridge, look at the bone and pick where you want the implant to go.”

And there’s even more new technology in the dental world: Alongside the high-tech computers and scanners, Jeanne Salcetti, a periodontist, just purchased a nearly $80,000 laser to use for gum surgery.

Salcetti hadn’t used her laser on a Springs patient yet — it just recently arrived — but she said dental colleagues are all raving about it.

Salcetti treats gum disease, which right now means doing surgery with knives, stitches, bone grafts and blood. The new technology will make the process less bloody and less invasive, which means it will heal more quickly, she said.

“It’s really exciting for surgeons to not have to deal with blood,” Salcetti said, adding that she “can’t wait” to use her laser.

Patients will also save money, as they don’t have to pay for a separate visit to get a bone graft.

But do these high-tech advances mean people now enjoy visiting the dentist?

“I don’t know about that,” Rockrimmon dentist O’Neal said. “It’s kind of like an IRS audit — but avoiding the second visit is good.”
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Contact the writer at 636-0368.