ABSTRACT
Objective To study the application value of the clinical pathway in the repairing distal extension removable partial denture.Methods One hundred and thirty patients with free-end dentition defect were selected in this study.In the oral cavity,the conditions of the mucosa were similar in terms of the residual teeth and alveolar crest mucosa, and the two groups of the same species were divided into 65 pairs. The random digital table method was used to divide patients into clinical path group and traditional repair group. The frequency of adjustments during the adaptive phase, masticatory efficiency of the denture at ending of the adaptive phase, visible movement of the extension base during the masticatory,decay of abutment,abutments loosen and food embedded plug were compared between the two groups. Results The frequency of adjustments during the adaptive phase was significantly lower in clinical path group than that of traditional repair group [1.00 (1.00, 2.00) times vs. 3.00 (2.00, 4.00) times]. The masticatory efficiency of the denture was higher in clinical path group than that of traditional repair group (93.85% vs. 76.96%). The visible movement of the extension base during mastication (0 vs. 15.38%), decay of abutment (1.54% vs. 13.85%), abutments loosen (0 vs. 12.31%) and food embedded plug(1.54% vs.15.38%)were significantly lower in clinical path group than those of traditional repair group(P<0.05). Conclusion The retention and the stabilization of the removable partial denture can be improved by means of clinical pathway. By following the clinical path method, the removable partial denture shows reduced unstable state of the denture in the functional state and has a good prospect for clinical application.