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You are here: Home / Esthetic Dentistry / Customizing Invisalign Trays to Replace a Missing Tooth

Customizing Invisalign Trays to Replace a Missing Tooth

By Lee Ann Brady on 09.12.11Category: Esthetic Dentistry

Fractured Lateral Incisor in a deep bite patient

A month or so ago I had a patient come in with a lateral incisor fractured off. After gathering all of our diagnostic records and sitting together to discuss his options, a treatment plan was created that included Invisalign therapy to unravel his anterior tooth alignment, shallow his guidance and setup being able to create edge to edge and crossover. The lateral will be removed and replaced with an implant and an equilibration completed to finalize the occlusion. Everyone was in agreement, and the only remaining challenge was dealing with the lateral that had embarked us on this process. The preference is to hang on to the root as long as possible until we are ready to place the fixture so we preserve bone. The patient requested not to have a missing tooth for the duration of the ortho therapy, but would prefer not to have endo, a post and temporary crown for a tooth that is scheduled to be removed in 4 months.

The solution has been to use his Invisalign trays to move his teeth and visually replace the missing tooth. I left the root in place, and we were able to ascertain we can complete the ortho and this root will not impede the movement of any other teeth. We are however, prepared to remove it part way through ortho if need be. I sealed the top of the root with composite, and then began playing with the Invisalign trays. The challenge is to fill the space visually, not add a large amount of work to customize every upper tray, and not to place material inside the tray that would impede tooth movement on either side. The solution, to create a facial facade with flowable composite in each tray. The first few trays were a test, but we have perfected the technique. I air abrade the inside of the tray where the labial surface of the lateral would be. After rinsing and drying, I apply dentin adhesive to the tray on this abraded surface. Finally I paint a 1mm thick layer of flowable composite to create the appearance of a tooth in this space. Once cured, this has been highly successful.

My learning has been that the air abrasion is a very critical step, prior to doing this the flowable was popping out when he removed the trays. The next critical step is the 1mm thickness of material, it is not so much that it creates a contact the adjacent teeth may bump, but thick enough that the flowable gets opaque enough to make it look as if there is a tooth present. Each time I see the patient to dispense his next three sets of trays we customize them for him. It takes a little of my time to do this, which we reflected in the Invisalign fee, but saved him the cost and chair time of several procedures so I could provisionalize this tooth.

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Comments

  1. Doug Sakurai says

    September 12, 2011 at 6:48 AM

    You could also use a white PVS material. I’ve used Vanilla bite by Discus but I think it’s not in production anymore. If you are worried about it impeding tooth movement, then leave the material short on the mesial and distal of the tooth since embrasures are not visible with the aligner in. The great thing about this method is that you can have the patient pop the “pontic” out and place it in their next aligner themselves without you using chair time.

    Reply
    • Lee Ann Brady says

      September 12, 2011 at 6:56 AM

      Doug,

      I love the idea of making them a pontic they can take in and out and move from tray to tray. This will work with composite as well as a white PVS material.

      Lee

      Reply
  2. sharon goodwin says

    September 13, 2011 at 11:55 AM

    Hi Leanne…that looks like a very interesting case.Deep overbites always present with challenges form a restorative standpoint.How can invisalign work to shallow out the guidance? How will the anterior teeth move to achive this?
    Thank you for sharing this interesting case!!
    Best wishes,
    Sharon Goodwin

    Reply
    • Lee Ann Brady says

      September 13, 2011 at 12:00 PM

      Hi Sharon,

      We are unraveling the upper crowding and rotations, so this will bring his upper anteriors labially. We did interproximal reduction on the lower anteriors, and are both unraveling the crowding, leveling the incisal plane and doing some intrusion. The combination of the intrusion and the labial movement of the uppers, decreases overbite and increases overjet, both of which help to shallow his guidance. The leveling of the incisal planes will allow me to get big broad contacts in protruisve and lateral edge to edge positions.

      Reply

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