Digital Prep Guide, Intraoral Scanners: Highlights of Annual CAD/CAM Event

Imagine the ability to fabricate a restoration before the patient's tooth is even prepped. Thanks to a new system in development from B&D, you may soon be able to do just that.

The company previewed its new Digital Prep Guide, currently in beta testing, at the Dental Laboratory Owners' Association of California's (DLOAC) CAD/CAM Expo and Symposium in November in Garden Grove, CA. Here's how it works: at the patient's first visit, if the dentist doesn't have an intraoral scanner, he takes a conventional impression then sends it to the lab where the technician fabricates a model, scans it and sends the digital file back to the dentist.

The dentist then uses the digital file and special software to virtually prep the tooth. He digitally marks the margin, selects the degree of the prep angle and removes tooth structure by selecting various size burs; he then sends this data back to the lab. Using the virtual prep and special software,...