Dear Restoratives Insider,
When you have a patient with advanced tooth wear who needs extensive restoration at increased occlusal vertical dimension, how do you handle the case clinically? Do you prepare all the teeth in a single day and place full-arch interim prostheses? Many of your colleagues do, but this can be tiring for the patient and the practitioner, along with being difficult to schedule for all parties. This Insider Exclusive features a new case report that looks at an alternative approach.
In the first of a two-part series, Dr. John Frachella makes the case for using silver nitrate and silver fluoride when treating already decayed teeth in children. In this column, he offers a real-world perspective on treating pediatric patients and looks at the scope of the caries problem in the U.S..
To help aid long-term success of endodontic procedures on teeth that have had previous root canals, the authors of a recent paper in the British Dental Journal suggest dismantling any restorations before treatment to assess the quality of the existing seal. They also examined the best practices for applying interim, temporary, and definitive restorations during and following a root canal. Read Assistant Editor Theresa Pablo's article here.
Nonimplant restorative work, aesthetic procedures, and extractions are the most commonly done procedures by general dentists, according to the findings of a new survey published in BMC Oral Health. Also, more than 80% of dentists in private practice reported working more than 32 hours a week, while only 52.3% of those in nonprivate practice did so. Read Features Editor Donna Domino's article here.
Also featured in the Restoratives Community, insurance expert Dr. Doyle Williams helps you with your coding dilemmas. In this column, he answers some of your questions submitted via email, including those on topics such as crowns and bridges, bone grafts for ridge preservation, and grafting with bone materials.
