Labs Team Up to Solve Patient's Recurring Denture Fractures

By the time Dr. Thomas Brown called our laboratory for help with this case, his patient had struggled with her maxillary denture for more than seven years and both patient and doctor were frustrated. During that time, they had attempted many different dentures: a denture that achieved posterior occlusion using monolithic denture base acrylic instead of teeth, multiple dentures with cast metal mesh as a strengthener, and even placed six root-form implants and fabricated Locator dentures with a cast metal strengthener bar. Each attempt ended with similar fractures multiple times.

My lead denture technician, Chris Brooks, and I sat down to plan the case and decided on a cast metal substructure that kept all of the posterior occlusion in metal with a removable appliance retained by the patient’s six Locator implants. All of the posteriors would have metal occlusion but we still wanted to maintain some esthetics, so we decided on denture tooth facings instead of all-cast...