Dental Lab Products-2012-06-01

01. Astra Tech was recently acquired by DENTSPLY. How has that impacted the company?

The state of the dental laboratory industry always has been evolving, with some areas evolving faster than others depending on the needs and focus of labs, whether those needs be to increase productivity, quality or both. We have seen porcelain, impression materials, die-stone and other staples make dramatic advancements. But while these advancements enabled us to improve our product, our techniques largely remained the same. We waxed, invested, cast, completed temporaries, baked and stained porcelain the way it had been done for many years. 

Earlier this year, I competed in the first North American Candulor KunstZahnWerk® “Art of Denture” competition featuring Candulor’s “Swiss art of Prosthetics” and Camlog’s “perfect fit” implants.

Modern dentistry provides the dental team with many options for restoring the oral cavity. The newer tools like digital impressions, CAD/CAM models and restorations, and full-contour milled restorations, allow us to do many things that were not available in the past.

Permitting fully automated and shrinkage-compensating polymerization of denture base material, the IvoBase® System consists of a PMMA-based denture base material and a custom injector. The IvoBase Acrylic material combines the advantages of heat- and cold-curing denture base resins, meeting the requirements of both. The hybrid material’s initial residual monomer content is <1.5%. IvoBase High Impact also is available for cases where high fracture resistance is desired.

The lab Located in Modesto, Calif., since opening its doors in the late 1970s, Hamilton Dental Design is a crown and bridge lab that also handles implant cases. The lab currently employs five technicians and two lab assistants.

In ceramic technology development, we must recognize that pressing and milling is the newest in state-of-the-art technology, or maybe not art but science. So where did the art go?

Straumann® CARES® System 7.0 software gives users full flexibility to choose their workflow-validated or external (open)-through a single system. The validated workflow provides direct access to precise, high-quality materials and restorations through Straumann’s centralized milling facilities and pre-set design parameters. Customized abutments for Straumann bone level and tissue level implant platforms are available in Zr02 and Ti materials.