With advancements made in digital technologies, practitioners across the U.S. are experiencing marked increases in dental treatment quality, speed and consistency. But one aspect of everyday treatment has been heretofore largely neglected by digital transformation: the temporary dental crown.

Temporary dental crowns serve an important purpose in the restorative treatment process by protecting preparations, safeguarding healing, managing tissue position, maintaining appearances, and more. While it is true that dentists who have fully embraced digital dentistry and use in-office milling machines can skip the temporary phase altogether and go straight to the final restoration, the majority of practitioners today still rely on temporary dental crowns while the definitive restoration is being manufactured by the lab.

So, for the everyday dentist who routinely delivers temporary dental crowns, is there a way to benefit from digital advancements without going all in on expensive in-office equipment? Yes! Glidewell offers BioTemps^® Provisionals, lab-made temporary dental crowns that now use a digital workflow to make treatment results more predictable.

BioTemps Provisionals have recently undergone a massive redevelopment process, with Glidewell’s Research & Development and Engineering teams applying cutting-edge technologies to transform how temporary dental crowns are made in the lab. First launched in the late 1980s, BioTemps Provisionals have been used for tens of millions of cases and represent one of Glidewell’s most popular offerings. Given that so many dentists rely on BioTemps Provisionals, the company strives to continually enhance the brand to ensure that dentists will benefit from the latest advancements.

The newest iteration of BioTemps Provisionals are made with artificial intelligence and virtual automation systems, tools that enhance the suitability and consistency of each unit. When a doctor sends in a preoperative impression to the lab, the case is immediately digitized so it can be designed in a virtual environment.

What sets BioTemps Provisionals apart from other lab-made digital temporary crowns is that they’re designed using Glidewell’s proprietary artificial intelligence system. This suite of tools and processes is informed by the tens of millions of cases successfully delivered by Glidewell in the digital age. This means that Glidewell can design patient-specific temporary dental crowns in a near-instantaneous manner within the virtual environment. Moreover, that design is informed by countless successful cases prescribed by dentists across the USA.

Traditionally, one significant challenge with creating temporary restorations in the lab from preoperative impressions has been successfully creating the intaglio area. Because the dentist has yet to prepare the tooth, labs historically have relied on a one-size-fits-most intaglio cavity to approximate a fit for the forthcoming preparations. With BioTemps Provisionals, the aforementioned artificial intelligence system is applied to subtract material from the intaglio of each unit, ensuring a more custom fit that’s informed by predictive analytics garnered from patients with similar anatomical scenarios.

In short, when digital technologies are applied to temporary dental crowns at Glidewell, dentists gain access to a provisional solution that’s informed by millions of previously successful cases, enhancing the chance of treatment success.

Another key benefit of a digital workflow being applied to temporary dental crowns is that the digital data can be used to inform the definitive case. Whereas the traditional lab workflows used for the temporary restoration and final restoration are totally separate, Glidewell’s digital lab capabilities allow the case-specific data to inform the manufacturing process for both the temporary and final restoration. This means that if the patient and dentist love the results they’re seeing with the BioTemps Provisionals, the lab can use those same design files to guide the design of the final restoration — in essence, the results of the provisionals are duplicated in the final.

So what does this digital temporary crown process look like for the dentist? Say that the clinician plans a BruxZir^® Esthetic Zirconia restorative case, with multiple zirconia crowns in the anterior. The patient would be brought in for preoperative impressions. From those impressions, the lab uses an AI-informed digital workflow to create BioTemps Provisionals.

The temporary crowns are then delivered to the practice for the second appointment, where the dentist creates preparations, takes final impressions and seats the BioTemps Provisionals. This new impression is returned to the lab, where it is combined with the temporary crown digital file to guide the virtual design of the definitive zirconia crowns. Of course, any feedback that the dentist and patient have about the provisionals can be incorporated into the design of the final — a process that’s simplified thanks to the existing temporary crown digital file, which ensures that the dentist and lab technician are referring to the same exact restorations.

Ultimately, the digital temporary crown workflow offer a more predictable pathway to restorative success, giving dentists and patients alike a more esthetic, reliable provisional, and an accurate preview of the definitive case.

With BioTemps Provisionals serving as an accurate preview of the final treatment, dentists have the opportunity to gain the patient’s initial approval before the definitive restorations are made. This means fewer surprises at the final delivery appointment.

In the case pictured above, BioTemps Provisionals were used to provide the patient an accurate first glimpse of the ultimate restorative treatment. The patient loved the appearance of her BioTemps Provisionals, and was eager to move on to the final BruxZir Esthetic restorations.