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This is an interesting case we restored that illustrates the huge benefit of using the Bioclear method to restore a broken down tooth.
The patient had an old silver filling on the side of the tooth that failed to result in the need for root canal treatment. The normal treatment for a tooth has had a root canal is to do a crown. Unfortunately even doing an ideal crown requires shaving away about 70% of the existing tooth structure including healthy enamel. In this case, trying to extend the crown margin above where the failed filling ends would have so weakened it that it would be highly likely to fracture off below the gum line.
In the Bioclear method, we only prepare the side of the tooth where the failed filling is with a minor reshaping of the enamel margins leaving almost all the healthy enamel untouched.
An anatomically correct Bioclear “aquarium” is placed around the tooth and a specially formulated, heated, composite is injection molded into and around the tooth, resulting in a dense, monolithic restoration having no detectable margins. This is then adjusted and polished so that the entire tooth is left in a state of compression with no tension junctions. Composite is 4-5 X stronger in compression than in tension. This is the most minimally invasive way of restoring severely damaged teeth.
On the X-ray we can see the dense, monolithic appearance of the restoration as well as the ideal, rounded shape creating a perfect contact with the tooth next to it.
By Philip Shindler, DDS
February 24, 2022
