The following workflow applies to patients receiving a complete denture with no dentition or existing full or partial dentures to establish a VDO and/or bite.
If using 3Shape, please see our Complete Denture with Wax Rim Workflow - 3Shape article.
Clinical Scenarios
- Fabricating a new complete denture using a wax rim.
The outline below is a step-by-step appointment guide for our complete denture with wax rim workflow. Please ensure to review our scanning guides before proceeding:
- Complete Denture Scanning Best Practices
- Recommended Scan Paths for Complete Dentures
- Preparing a Denture for Scanning
- Extraoral 360° Scan Technique
Upper and Lower Intraoral Scans
Appointment 1
- On your Chairside Home screen, press “Start” and enter the patient's name.
- If they are new, please fill out the gender and birthday
- Select “Dentures” > ”Denture” > ”A New Denture”
- You will then be asked if your patient has an existing denture, to which you will answer “No” and press “Next”
- Then you will indicate whether the appliance is to be implant supported, answer “No” and press “Next’”
- If "Yes", and the patient already had their implants placed, please follow our Overdenture with Wax Rims Workflow.
- If "Yes", and the patient needs their implants placed, please follow our Implant Supported Overdenture Workflow.
- Indicate which arch(es) we will be creating a full denture for, press “Add to Order” and “Start Scanning”
- Take upper and lower intraoral scans, capturing all necessary landmarks:
- Depth of buccal and lingual vestibules
- Frena
- Hamular notches
- Retromolar pads
- Full palate including some extension into the soft palate.
- Submit the case to begin the fabrication of a wax rim.
Note: If facing difficulty scanning (in particular, an edentulous lower arch), doctors may take a standard impression and scan the impressions intaglio surface and borders. (no 360 needed) The patient must be fully edentulous to direct scan impressions. If the patient still has existing teeth pour a stone model and scan the model.
Bite Registration & Scan
Appointment 2
Wax rim adjustment and information capture
- After receiving the wax bite rim from Dandy, evaluate the fit and dimensions of the wax rim in the patient's mouth and adjust accordingly.
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Prepare the wax rim for scanning
- Border mold the periphery of the wax rim using compound, wax or heavy body PVS material.
- Have the patients perform functional movements.
- Apply PVS tray adhesive, recommended.
- Apply light body wash, have patients repeat functional movements.
- Trim excess impression material that may be covering the occlusal or facial portion of the wax rim.
- Adjust the wax rim to achieve proper VDO, bite, and lip support.
- Evaluate the “F”, ”V”, and “S” sounds to verify the dimensions of the wax rim.
- Clearly mark the wax bite rim with the patient’s smile lines, canine lines, and midlines.
- Also cut notches in the occlusal and mark up the rest of the unmarked wax rim to break up the monotony of the flat wax.
- This will greatly assist in capturing the 360 scan.
- Capture bite registration and trim excess material away from the buccal and facial sides of the wax rim.
Scan
- Navigate to the patient's case and select “Continue Order”, it will be displayed in a green banner. This will prompt you to scan with scan pages labeled accordingly.
- Perform 360 extraoral scan(s) of the wax bite rim(s).
- If a single arch wax bite rim:
- Scan with wax bite rim in the mouth (from molar to midline on both left and right sides) with blue mousse (or preferred bite registration material).
- If dual arch wax bite rim(s), you have two options:
- Scan both arches in occlusion outside of mouth (full arch from molar to molar) with blue mousse (or preferred bite registration material).
- Scan inside the mouth molar to the midline on both sides.
Take photos of the patient [Highly Recommended]
- Head-on photo with the patient smiling naturally (with wax bite rim in place).
- 2 profile pictures (1 from each side) with the patient smiling naturally (with wax bite rim in place).
- [If possible] A head-on photo of the patient with cheek retractors in place (with wax bite rim in place).
Submit case for fabrication
- When submitting the order, select “Wax Rim Continuation” to be taken to the lab rx for full dentures.
- You will be able to select the most common add-ons during checkout