March 26, 2018

Fiber reinforced composite bridge: Dr Nik

I saw this patient two months ago when she came in to check on a crowned tooth that has been giving her pain. It was root treated and crowned for more than 20 years ago but now it is slightly shaky and painful that patient wondered why and hoped that it can be saved.

Upon examination the tooth was visibly moved when being pushed sideways and it was also tender to percussion. The surrounding gum area was also inflamed with visible redness.

To investigate further , I took a periapical radiograph (x-ray) and from radiograph examination I can clearly see a crack line at the midway of the root length. Well…this tooth definitely cannot be saved and has to be extracted out. Now the question is , how to replace the tooth after the extraction?

I discussed the possible ways to replace the tooth and the patient opted for fiber reinforced composite (FRC) bridge. The reason for her decision was that I did one for her husband a year ago and her husband is very happy with it…there wasn’t any problem so far and doing FRC bridge means that I don’t need to cut a lot of tooth structure.

However, there’s some limitation with FRC bridge compared to the conventional Porcelain fused to metal bridge. I discussed the pro and cons of FRC bridge with the patient before I proceeded with the extraction. Another appointment date was given to her to come back for FRC bridge treatment.

Today, 2 months after the extraction was done, she came back for the treatment. It took me 2 hours to complete the FRC bridge…yes the treatment requires a lot of time as I need to directly build and craft a tooth from resin composite material that are initially soft before we shine with special light to hardened it. Now that we had replaced the missing tooth, I hoped that she will be able to chew better and smile wider.