A novel chairside technique to assess the interocclusal clearance and abutment axial walls during tooth preparation.

The importance of a judicious and unerring abutment tooth preparation in the field of prosthodontics has always been paramount. It is not uncommon for many clinicians to face challenges during laboratory fabrication of fixed prostheses, caused due to inappropriate occlusal clearance and over axial wall taper of the abutment tooth. With evolving technologies and methods, the modus operandi for attaining such tooth preparation is varying; however, every technique has its own shortcomings. The technique mentioned in the article is cost-effective as it uses modified Heister mouth gag forceps to achieve the desired objective of evaluating the prepared abutment morphology three-dimensionally with minimum chairside time.

An evaluation of the position of the neutral zone in relation to the crest of mandibular alveolar ridge - An In-vivo study.

BACKGROUND: In view of the importance of neutral zone in complete denture construction, it was thought feasible to determine the relation between the centre of the alveolar ridge crest in relation to the neutral zone in a buccolingual direction which will help in positioning of the teeth in a region of minimum conflict so that the stability of the denture is enhanced. MATERIALS & METHODS: The position of the neutral zone to alveolar ridge crest was investigated in 30 edentulous patients comprising of both males and females divided into three groups, Group I consisted of ten patients whose period of edentulousness varied from 0-4 years. Group II included ten patients who were edentulous for more than 4 years but less than 8 years. Group III consisted of ten patients whose period of edentulousness varied between 8-12 years. One-way ANOVA test and multiple comparisons by bonferroni post-hoc tests were used to analyze the results and the significance was tabulated. RESULTS: The results of the present study state that the neutral zone serves as a guide and suggests that the period of edentulousness should be considered while arranging the teeth for complete dentures. CONCLUSION: The findings of the current study may serve as an important guide in arrangement of teeth for complete denture prosthesis and would help to determine the correlation between the neutral zone in relation to the crest of the alveolar ridge and the period of edentulousness. How to cite the article: Bhorgonde D, Nandakumar K, Khurana PR, Kumari VS, Reddy MS, Siddique S. An evaluation of the position of the neutral zone in relation to the crest of mandibular alveolar ridge - An In-vivo study. J Int Oral Health 2014;6(2):45-54.

A clinical study to correlate maxillary anterior natural teeth with that of the commercially available acrylic and porcelain shade guides.

The success of the dental treatment as perceived by our patients is often preferentially evaluated on the appearance of the restoration. Usually visual determination is unreliable and inconsistent, complicated by the inability of the shade guide to cover the entire dental color range and also there is lack of logical order of arrangement of the tabs. Hence a clinical study is planned to perform visual shade selection in standardized conditions to correlate the shades of maxillary anterior natural teeth in adult subjects of Davengere district origin to one acrylic and three porcelain shade guides commercially available in India.