Prosthetic odontology

Prosthetic odontology is aimed to reactivate the function and the aesthetic of the teeth when they are much compromised o missed, using movable or fixed prosthesis.

Movable prosthesis
Movable prosthesis allows the rehabilitation of the total or partial edentulous (lack of only some teeth). They distinguish in:

• Total movable prosthesis, vulgarly described dentures, which allows the replacement of one teeth of a complete arch, but must be removed from the patient himself for daily hygiene.
• skeletal prosthesis or partial removable prosthesis: is a removable prosthesis which allows the substitution of only a part of the dental arch, using a metal alloy structure provided with hooks fastened to healthy dental leftover, it guarantees stability and precision.

Fixed prosthesis
Crown and dental bridges
Those restorations, once fixed definitively to the supporting structures or residual pillars, cannot be removed by the patient.
They can be realised both on a natural tooth and on an implant.
The fixed prosthesis on a natural tooth consists in milling and reducing the tooth to a prosthetic stump that can be living or not (this means that can be devitalised, without the nerve anymore).

When the tooth crown is destroyed – so it can’t be transformed in a stump – the missing part of the tooth can be rebuilt, with or without a pivot, not as a bone implant (as is it often confused), but as a support pivot partially inserted in one or more root canals of a devitalized tooth.
The reconstruction of the pivot stump is opportune and recommended as big damage to crown had occurred, after having performed a correct root canal therapy (devitalisation).

The fixed prosthesis on a bone implant is realized with a procedure similar to the one on a natural tooth. The stump, in this case, is generally metal and it is connected on a titanium screw implant (SEE IMPLANTOLOGY). The prosthetic crown can be secured to the substructure with cement (as the prosthetic crown on the tooth) or fixed thanks to small internal screw (abutment crown prosthesis).

In every prosthetic rehabilitation, both limited to just one part of the oral cavity and to the complete mouth, will be prove to be fundamental to the conservation of restoring procedures applied, with the passing of time, a periodical and meticulous monitoring of the rehabilitation performed as well as a regular checking of the oral cavity hygiene of the patient.