Dr. Bennett and our staff at Arvada Dental Center are committed to providing you with world-class care using the latest in dental technology. This includes utilizing advanced CEREC technology to make quality dental crowns in just one office visit! CEREC stands for Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramics, or CEramic REConstruction, and was developed by W. Mörmann and M. Brandestini at the University of Zurich in 1980. Originally devised as a simple method for creating and inserting a dental restoration onsite, CEREC has come a long way in terms of accuracy and efficiency. Today, with the help of computerized imaging, it is the top technology for making lasting, secure dental crowns. Here’s a little bit about our process.
Dental crowns are used to restore the surface and structural integrity of a damaged tooth so you can continue using it without discomfort or infection. The CEREC process begins once the tooth being treated has been prepared and cleaned. Instead of the traditional method of taking an impression, we will use a medical-grade camera to take a detailed digital picture of your tooth. This will then be uploaded into our Computer Aided Design (CAD) program which will convert the image into a 3-D model of the prepped tooth.
Dr. Bennett will then use this model tooth to design a customized restoration on the computer screen. Using Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM), the data from the restoration design is sent to a 3-D milling machine. Crowns can typically be created in between 6 and 15 minutes and will be composed of white ceramic matched to your tooth. Once ready, the crown can be easily fitted and cemented in place in a matter of minutes.
This method can be used to design any single tooth restoration, including crowns, onlays (partial crowns), inlays (fillings) and porcelain veneers. The majority of CEREC tooth restorations can be completed in just one office visit – a drastic change from traditional crowns, which can take weeks to place due to the crowns having to be milled in a laboratory. Additionally, CEREC crowns are more customized and tend to be much more resistant to complications thanks to providing a tighter seal on the exposed tooth. Now that’s world-class care!
Visit our website to view images of this process and to read more about the advanced technology Arvada Dental Center offers!
