Page 16 - CEREC Q3 | 2014

14 | CERECDOCTORS.COM | QUARTER 3 | 2014
for those who’ve raised children
in the last 40 years, you’re probably
singing the famous CookieMonster song
in your head right now. However, in the
day in/day out of the CEREC practice,
“C” stands for Biogeneric Copy.
And while there have been significant
improvements to the CEREC hardware
and software in the last two yearswith the
Omnicamand version4.2 software, Bioge-
neric Copy is my primary method for
designing restorations. Let’s look at why.
Those who’ve been using CEREC
for five years or more remember when
we used to select teeth from databases
from which we had to find a tooth that
closely resembled the existing denti-
tion. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it did
allow us to create beautiful restorations
in a single visit. When version 3.8 hit
the market, we no longer had to choose
database teeth. We had sophisticated
software that looked at the anatomy of
adjacent teeth and could propose resto-
rations consistent with the wear patterns
of the patients. This was Biogeneric soft-
ware in its infancy. This worked well for
clinicians most of the time. However,
there were certain instances where
the proposal was not ideal. Usually it
involved one ormore cusps (or the incisal
edge) being out of place. That’s not to say
it couldn’t be corrected with the design
tools; it could. But the fastest, most
predictable way to get consistently great
proposals is using Biogeneric Copy.
The folks at Sirona did a great thing by
calling the design method
Biogeneric Copy and not
simply, “copy.” As most of
us already know, where we
C is for Copy ...
That’s Good Enough for Me
The Fastest, Most Predictable Way to Get Great Proposals
CLINICAL ||| BY BEN JUMP, D.D.S.
define the boundaries of our copy line will
designate what is copied and what is not.
What is inside the “circle” in thepre-opera-
tive toothwill be replicated in theproposal.
What is outside the copy line, Biogeneric
softwarefills inandmatches thispart of the
restorationto that adjacentdental anatomy.
Let’s take a look at some examples.
CASE EXAMPLES
The first example is a straightforward
copy case. Tooth #30 has marginal break-
down on the distal margin of an existing
goldcrown.Thepre-operativeconditionof
the gold crown had nice occlusal anatomy.
The patient was comfortable with her
occlusion, so the crown was tradition-
ally copied and the result was a perfectly
matched crown.
Now, let’s consider a different tech-
nique. What do we do when a patient
needs a crown but the pre-operative tooth
does not have the best occlusal anatomy?
Traditionally, most of us will choose
Biogeneric Individual as our design
method. It’s important to point out that
this is not a poor choice. You will typically
get a proposal that is workable and will
yield a very fine CEREC-driven restora-
tion. Unfortunately, the algorithms which
give us great proposals don’t always give
us perfect proposals. We’re left to design
these restorations in order to create a
perfect fit for our patient. While this can
work well, it does take time — which, as
we all know, is our most valuable asset.
An alternative to this is to copy only
what we like about a tooth and let the
Biogeneric software fill in what we
don’t. Approaching cases this way is a
win-win. First, it’s a win for clinicians
1
2
3
Fig. 1: Pre-operative tooth good cusp
position and poor occlusal anatomy
Fig. 2: Facial view of crown showing
ideal cusp position
Fig. 3: Lingual view of pre-operative
tooth showing ideal cusp position