User evaluation of Lang Dental’s NOVUS

As a profession, many of us use soft reline materials for our edentulous patients. Options in the past have included either chairside procedures or laboratory processed materials.

As seen in the responses from our group below, there are a variety of issues with soft reline materials. The biggest concern for a soft/resilient denture liner, regardless of whether the material was used chairside or was laboratory processed, is the longevity of the softness/resilience.

The lack of a durable bond to the denture base is the second most cited failure. With these as issues, the Catapult Group was very interested in reviewing a new material by Lang Dental called Novus™.

What the reviewers were interested in seeing

• 100% of reviewers were interested in the material’s loss of softness

• The material’s debonding from base was a key concern for 71% of reviewers

• 57% of reviewers were interested in color change

• Odor was a key factor for 86% of reviewers    

• Bacterial/fungal growth was a concern for 57% of reviewers    

• Polishability was key for 57% of reviewers    

What the material was made to do

• Per the manufacturer, the virtues of this laboratory-cured complete denture liner include:

• Shock absorption during chewing (more patient comfort with fewer adjustments)

• Permanent softness (Shore A durometer = 35, no plasticizers to leach out)

• Resistance to surface and subsurface fungal growth (less fouling, odor or stain)

• Low surface tension with excellent wetting

• Easy adjustment and polishing with rotary instruments

• Engagement of deep anatomical undercuts

• Moldable around implant heads and bars, or around overdenture abutments, to provide denture retention, stability and support as well as allow denture movement toward the abutments and tissues

• Excellent bonding to acrylic denture bases

• Uses standard dental laboratory compression-molding processing steps

• The material is x-ray opaque and can be identified if parts are swallowed or inhaled

Findings from the Catapult evaluation

Novus was extremely well received by the Catapult evaluation cadre. On a scale of 1 (the best rating) to 5 (the worst) at insertion, Novus scored 1.86 for texture and softness and 2.0 for denture base bonding. The average rating for both color and appearance as well as ease of adjustment was 2.14. The average rating for subjective fit was 2.00. At the follow-up visits, the texture was unchanged and the denture bonding, overall appearance and assessment of fit were all excellent.

These average ratings reinforced that the group found adjusting and polishing this material relatively easy. This has been troublesome with many of the soft reline materials we have implemented over the past few years. The color is unique, and does not appear as denture based traditional acrylics.

Maintenance of the newly relined denture is simple, using conventional denture cleansers. The denture should not be scrubbed with any abrasive because it roughens the surface, and that has adverse effects on keeping it clean for the long run. The Novus material is anti fungal and bacteriostatic, therefore there is no growth on the surface of the denture.

This short-term evaluation shows great promise for providing dentists and their patients with a truly resilient liner for dentures that maintains color, texture and softness for a long period of time.