FCZ and ImPak Abutment – Ultimate Affordability

February 1, 2010

One of our missions is to strive to find ways to provide our clients with great value.  Here’s a demo case I made recently featuring one of our Impak titanium milled custom abutments restored with an SDL ORIGINal Z FCZ.

We began by scanning and designing the abutment using our 3Shape CAD software.  This particular implant was a Biomet 3i Certain 6.0.  We put the margins on the abutment approximately 0.5mm sub-gingival on the facial and interproximal surfaces, and left it at tissue height on the lingual.  You can see we also gave the abutment an anatomical shape with greater reduction in the central dissectional groove area to allow room for more realistic occlusal anatomy in the final restoration.

Once we were happy with the design, we remitted the file to our USA-based milling facility for fabrication of the abutment. NO EXPENSIVE UCLA ABUTMENT WAS REQUIRED!!!

The turnaround time from the milling center is approximately 2-3 days.  Once we received the finished abutment, we verified the fit, design and marginal placement before performing a 3Shape scan of the abutment on the model.  This scan served as the basis for designing and milling our own SDL ORIGINal Z FCZ.

I chose to use the auto-degrade feature of the occlusal anatomy in an effort to match the adjacent teeth, which I’m not sure I would do in retrospect.  Anyway, the crown was milled using our Origin HT Zirconia with a flexural strength of 950 MPa.  I wanted to see if the more translucent material would cover the titanium abutment without any undue influence on the final shade, and I would say the answer is “Yes”.

Is it the prettiest crown I’ve ever made?  No, but its certainly passable in the posterior, and the real story here is the value of the entire complex.

Implant Model:  $50

ImPak Titanium Abutment:  $212

SDL FCZ: $119

Total: $381

That’s a pretty amazing cost structure for restoring a single posterior implant!

The only items not included in this fee would be the impression coping, the abutment replica, and the final gold screw (A lab screw is supplied with the abutment).

Next time you do a case with a cast custom abutment and a PFM – both containing high noble white gold at the minimum – compare the value.  And, don’t forget to include the cost of the UCLA Abutment…

© 2010, Jeff Saylors. All rights reserved.