Chairside Economical Restoration of Esthetic Ceramic (CEREC) is state of the art digital technology for creating dental restorations. With Computer-Aided Design & Computer-Aided Manufacturing(CAD/CAM) innovations, natural looking, high quality, & long lasting restorations are designed and milled within a single visit. CEREC can be used for a host of restorations including ceramic crowns, bridges, veneers, onlays & inlays.
So what exactly is CEREC and how does it differ from the traditional method?
To summarise, the benefits with CEREC are
1) Having your crown in just one visit With traditional methods, there are multiple appointments required. After preparing the tooth, a conventional impression is taken of the tooth and sent to the laboratory to fabricate a crown. With CEREC, the prepared tooth is scanned with an intra-oral camera within minutes and the crown is designed and milled in-house within less than a hour. So you can have your new crown cemented after coming back from a coffee!
For patients with dental anxiety, this relieves them of the stress of multiple dental visits and limits disruption to our patient's busy schedules.
2) No need for Temporary Crowns
Traditionally, while the crown is being fabricated by the laboratory, the prepared tooth is temporised with a temporary crown. It can be stressful to care for temporary fixes and sometimes emergencies occur. Thankfully, with CEREC there is no need for temporaries.
3) Higher Accuracy
With the use of Intra-oral scanners and CAD/CAM technologies, the restorations are found to be better fitting. It is also possible to make a replica of existing teeth to fit any other dentures or retainers that patients may have.
4) Durability
Cerec Restorations are milled from a block of ceramic, increasing their fracture & crack resistance. Thereby increasing the longevity and durability of the crown.
What is the Process for getting a CEREC Crown?
After ascertaining the patient's suitability for the CEREC crown, Local Anaesthesia is given and the tooth is prepared. The tooth is then scanned with the intra-oral scanner, so no goopy impression material is used. After the scanning is done, the crown is designed using a specialised digital programme and precision milled out of ceramic with high accuracy. The restoration is tried in the mouth and polished before it is bonded to the tooth
