Influence of the bite impression technique on reproducibility of occlusal contacts in working casts for dental implants

For an implant prosthesis to function permanently and well in the oral cavity, it is necessary to consider various biomechanical factors. 2 Esposito et al. reported that occlusion-induced overloads are associated with increased morbidity and poor durability of dental implants. In order to obtain appropriate occlusal contacts in prostheses, it is important to determine the reproducibility of occlusal contacts in working casts. The open tray impression technique is generally employed to fabricate working casts, because of the high-level accuracy of impressions routinely obtained with this method. 6 On the other hand, the bite impression technique has been developed with good reproducibility of the occlusal contact relationship, and clinically applied for the fabrication of tooth-supported− type crowns. 7−17 Recently, Hayashi et al. reported that the bite impression technique is useful for the fabrication of dental casts, and has high occlusal contact reproducibility. Furthermore, Kubo et al. 17 clarified the usefulness of the bite impression technique based on a clinical evaluation of the relationship between the prosthesis and the adjacent teeth, the marginal fit, and the crown height. However, despite clinical study and clinical case reports using the bite impression technique to fabricate implant prostheses, as well as a study addressing the positional relationship with an abutment in a working cast fabricated using this technique, no study has experimentally investigated the relationship between the implant prosthesis and opposing dentition. In this study, we investigated the reproducibility of occlusal contacts of working casts for dental implants for the bite impression technique. Influence of the bite impression technique on reproducibility of occlusal contacts in working casts for dental implants