I recently presented a lecture at Sirona’s CEREC^® 25th anniversary party/conference in Las Vegas, where it was pretty amazing to see more than 1,300 of the approximately 8,000 U.S. CEREC owners gathered in one place to exchange information about how to implement this game-changing technology. According to the National Association of Dental Laboratories, approximately 38 million crowns were fabricated in U.S. dental labs last year, with an additional 1.75 million crowns made in-office by CEREC doctors. And while that might seem like a large chasm, the CEREC number appears to be growing more quickly than the overall crown number.

You might think the lab would detest CAD/CAM, and that it would spell the death knell for the lab business as we know it. But the truth is, we celebrate the precision and consistency of our in-lab CAD/CAM restorations. In fact, 45% of lab-fabricated restorations are made using CAD/CAM technology. That is a big jump from just 10% CAD/CAM in 2007, a mere three years ago! IPS e.max^® crowns and BruxZir^® crowns & bridges, our two fastest growing products, account for the majority of that growth.

Dentists who provide same-day crowns to their patients (a great service) still prep crowns with high esthetic requirements on maxillary anterior teeth, and then send us their cases through CEREC Connect. There are plenty of bridge patients, but those can’t be milled chairside. It seems as though the future of dentistry looks like this: The lab is like a specialist, analogous to an endodontist who sees the tough cases. The easy posterior crowns get milled chairside, and the esthetic challenges and large cases are left to the skill and artistry of today’s dental technicians, who will get better at these cases through repetition.

If you haven’t looked into CEREC lately, I encourage you to learn more about this impressive system. If you prefer the traditional method of lab-fabricated restorations, where you focus on preps and impressions, rest assured if you send the case to us, there is a pretty good chance it will still be touched by CAD/CAM technology.