Chairside Zirconia Hybrid Implant Restorations
Dentsply Sirona’s CEREC Cercon 4D™ Abutment Blocks and Calibra® Abutment Resin Cement provide excellent strength and esthetics
March 1, 2025
Volume 21
,
Issue 2
,
March 2025
Page(s): p. 40
Every day, Brett Titensor, DDS, strives to provide the best dentistry in the industry so that he can fulfill his practice's mission of empowering their patients with the education, health, and self-confidence that they need to live their best lives. Titensor Dental is a fully digital dental office located just north of the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport in Flower Mound, Texas. "Incorporating some of the most modern technology has helped our office become the area's go-to place for high-end, full-service dentistry, including implants, sedation, cosmetic, and restorative dentistry," he says.
Titensor attributes much of the success of his practice to the mentorship provided by his father, who he joined in practice after graduating dental school. "I feel really fortunate to have had a fantastic mentor in my father," he says. "I worked with him until I was able to buy the practice, and I found his mentorship and training to be a huge springboard for my dental career. Aside from that, I heavily invested in technology and the education required to best utilize that technology, and that has clearly been a major contributor to our practice's success today."
One technology driven service that Titensor has been offering at his practice is the chairside fabrication of crowns, which he mills using a CEREC Primemill® from Dentsply Sirona. Most recently, Titensor began incorporating Dentsply Sirona's CEREC Cercon 4D™ Abutment Blocks into his workflows. "This product was first teased to me at a private event at Dentsply Sirona World, and I loved the idea of having a beautiful and strong zirconia block for my patients' implant-supported restorations," he says.
CEREC Cercon 4D Abutment Blocks are the world's first highly esthetic CAD/CAM zirconia blocks for titanium-base hybrid implant restorations that are constructed to mimic natural teeth. With multiple indications, they can be used to produce both cement-retained and screw-retained implant crowns. "The CEREC Cercon 4D Abutment Block is composed of a high-quality zirconia material that provides excellent strength and esthetics," Titensor says. "It is user-friendly, integrates well with CEREC workflows, and delivers precise restorations."
With a flexural strength greater than 1,100 MPa, CEREC Cercon 4D Abutment Blocks permit the fabrication of restorations with wall thicknesses as thin as 0.5 mm. This provides increased freedom in situations where space is limited. "When compared with restorations milled from other abutment materials, restorations milled from Cercon 4D Abutment Blocks stand out not only in strength and esthetics but also fit," says Titensor. "There have been plenty of times that I needed a thinner material for tight implant locations, and it provides the answer to those tight spots. I love the fact I can mill it on extra fine mode in my Primemill and get a restoration with amazing details that requires minimal to no post-milling refinement."
Titensor also notes the reduction in visit times provided by the efficient in-office processing of Cercon 4D Abutment Blocks. With CEREC Primemill, excellent abutments and abutment crowns can be milled in 15 minutes, and with CEREC SpeedFire®, an abutment or abutment crown can be sintered in about 36 minutes.
When bonding abutments or abutment crowns milled from Cercon 4D Abutment Blocks, Titensor uses Dentsply Sirona's Calibra® Abutment Resin Cement. "The seamless compatibility between the CEREC Cercon 4D Abutment Block and Calibra Abutment Resin Cement enhances long-term durability and improves patient outcomes by ensuring a secure, lasting fit," he says.
Calibra Abutment Resin Cement, which is indicated for the cementation and extraoral assembly of implant prosthetic components, delivers high-strength results with a simple protocol. It achieves excellent shear bond strength to zirconia, and that strength has been tested to survive autoclaving/terminal sterilization. In addition, its ultra-opaque shade blocks undesirable substrate show-through for patient-pleasing esthetics, and its formulation gives it a low film thickness and makes it fast drying and easy to clean up. "Calibra Abutment Resin Cement achieves an excellent bond with the CEREC Cercon 4D material," Titensor says. "Although it is kind of too early to tell because it is so new, I have not had any decementations, and I cannot imagine that decementation will be an issue. I have, however, definitely noticed that Calibra Abutment Resin Cement is easy to use and that the cleanup is really simple."
Titensor is quick to note that Dentsply Sirona is a great partner to work with regarding ongoing customer support, particularly due to their representatives' high level of technical expertise. "Dentsply Sirona has always been on the leading edge, pushing the profession into the future with all of the technology and workflows that they provide," he says. "They stand by their product and mission, and they provide the support needed to ensure practice success."
Ultimately, CEREC Cercon 4D Abutment Blocks and Calibra Abutment Resin Cement help Titensor deliver the high-end digital dentistry that his patients expect with efficient chairside-milled implant restorations. "To my knowledge, this is the only chairside zirconia implant crown workflow," he says. "It's a huge technical achievement, and any dentist who restores implants who wants to take his or her practice to the next level now has another big reason to invest in a Primemill."
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