DR. EDUARDO MAHN, CHILE

Course Objectives

The participants will learn:

• About the advantages and disadvantages of minimal invasive veneers
• To prepare for ceramic contact lenses
• How to improve their preparations
• To decide when to indicate what type of veneers
• To make reliable temporaries when minimal invasive preparations are performed

Course Description

The course will cover the necessary knowledge to master preparations and the indication fo ceramic contact lenses. Teeth from 13-23 are going to be prepared keeping into consideration the thickness of the ceramic and the tooth proportions. Exercises are going to be done to improve our skills in order to prepare more precise margins. The interproximal chamfer concept will be explained and the different finishing margins presented. Then temporaries are going to be done and the tricks for them explained.

All the steps will be shown by the instructor with an HD camera with high magnification for explanation of all the details.

Course Abstract

Since a few years we are facing the fact that more and more often patients are asking for dental veneers without preparation, non-prep veneers or „contact lenses“ for teeth, that will make them look better, whiter and younger.

Years ago, patients came to us because they were sick or because they were in pain. They were easily accepting our treatment plan and following our advices. But something changed over night and some of us were caught unprepared by this change. Patients are now not only better informed but also skeptical because they compare different sources of information, and we are just one of them. In one of the fields where the shift is more accentuated is in esthetic dentistry, specifically regarding veneers. These effects are happening because of mainly two reasons, first, the very aggressive and dishonest marketing of some dental companies and clinics, and second, because patients can find lots of misleading information free on the internet. The truth is, that there are few cases where minimal prep veneers will be easier than more traditional options .There are many advantages when we do not remove tooth structure, but also many drawbacks that need to be addressed. In fact, a minimal chamfer need to be even more precise and clean that a traditional one, since double margins will be more critical.

Several aspects need to be assessed before such a treatment is offered to a patient. Size and contours of the teeth before and after the treatment need to be compared. Even extremely thin veneers of 0.2 or 0.3 mm can dramatically change the appearance. Also the desired colour is a factor to keep in mind, since severe discolorations might not be completely covered. In case of diastemas, the path of insertion and the presence of undercuts might impede the insertion of them and too translucent ceramics might look greyisch.

These and other factors will be discussed during the course based on fully documented clinical cases.