In a few weeks, I'm scheduled to get a new dental crown. If you have ever had a crown put on, you remember the traditional impressions you went through. It involved some gooey material stuffed in your mouth to mold to the shape of your surrounding teeth.
Today, as I just experienced, there’s a much better way to achieve this. Now, a digital scan allows a dentist to get the necessary information for creating the needed crown. The simple and quick procedure just generates a 3-D map of the area of your mouth on a computer screen that enables the dentist to view your entire set of teeth on the screen.
The quality of these scans is better too, as there’s less room for error with totally digital information. Combined with X-rays, the crown can be placed in a perfect geometric position and the digital file is then used to design and fabricate the crown using CAD software and 3D printing or milling.
As anyone could guess, these digitizing systems made by Dandy in the US and Imagoworks in South Korea aren’t cheap and can cost in the $50,000 range. When my crown will be installed, I’ll chime in to let you know how the installation process went !
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