TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates generally to the field of implant dentistry, and more particularly to designing, manufacturing, and installing denture bars for overdenture dental implants.

BACKGROUND

Modern prosthetic dentures can be permanently mounted in a patient's mouth via a customized denture bar that mounts to dental abutments that in turn mount to dental implants that are placed in the patient's jawbone. Traditionally, this involved making an impression mold of the patient's mouth, creating a model of the patient's mouth from the mouth mold, and designing and casting a bar based on the mouth model. But this process introduces inaccuracies, so the customized bar had to be sectioned and soldered back together to get a precise fit.

In an effort to improve on this, the KAL/CAL (Kulzer Abutment Luting/California Abutment Luting) technique was introduced. This involves positioning shim spacers on the abutments before making a wax-up of the bar, which when removed leave gaps in the model bar. Basically, this involves oversizing the abutment holes in the bars to account for imprecision in the process, to thereby provide a bar with a “passive” fit on the abutments, with the oversized gap then filled with cement in the luting process to provide a resulting precise fit.

More recent developments have involved creating a digital model of the physical model of the patient's mouth using a highly accurate desktop/laboratory scanning system, digitally designing the bar based on the digital model, and milling the bar from one piece of material. This is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 6,902,401, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. This results in a custom bar that precisely fits the abutments, and so the cement gaps are not needed or included in the bar design. However, this process (leading up to the ability to generate a custom bar, regardless if a cast or CAD/CAM bar) still has its drawbacks. For example, it requires numerous office visits to complete, and the laboratory model used to generate the custom bar must still be verified by a verification jig.

Accordingly, it can be seen that needs exist for improvements in the designing, manufacturing, and installing of custom denture bars. It is to the provision of solutions meeting these and other needs that the present invention is primarily directed.

SUMMARY

Generally described, the invention relates to a digital design and manufacturing process for denture abutment luting bars, and such denture bars designed and manufactured by the process. In exampled embodiments, the process includes taking an intraoral scan of a patient's mouth with existing implants, creating a digital model of the patient's mouth based on the intraoral scan, digitally designing a denture bar based on the digital mouth model, fabricating a physical bar based on the digital bar model, delivering the physical bar into the patient's mouth, capturing records of the patient's mouth and installed physical bar, producing a physical denture and joining it to the physical bar, and delivering the physical denture and bar into the patient's mouth, all in no more than three dental office visits. The step of digitally designing a denture bar typically includes selecting a cement gap for the abutments based on errors in the digital mouth model resulting from the intraoral scan, as well as designing lateral cement ports into the digital bar model for use in the luting process. And the step of fabricating a physical bar typically includes using additive manufacturing such as 3D printing.

These and other aspects, features, and advantages of the invention will be understood with reference to the drawing figures and detailed description herein, and will be realized by means of the various elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following brief description of the drawings and detailed description of example embodiments are explanatory of example embodiments of the invention, and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.

