(Scan)Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: What do I need to buy to do Abutments?

I get a lot of questions from both Doctors and Sales reps regarding all the parts and pieces needed to make either a CEREC abutment or screw retained crown, so here is a little info for ya!  First you need to ask yourself how you plan on taking an optical impression.  Do you want to scan in the mouth or scan a stone model?  If you are scanning in the mouth you need to use a Scan Post with a gray cap if you have an Omnicam or a white cap if you have a Blue Cam.  As you can see in the image.  The Scan Post is longer than the Ti-Base. If you are scanning in the mouth you need both a Scan Post and a Ti-base (which goes inside your restoration).  If you arescanning off a model, you only need the ti-base and the white cap.

Here is another image showing the difference between a Scan Post and a Ti-Base.  When indexing, or lining up the cap and the post, you can really see the mark on the mid buccal in the Scan Post, on the Ti-Base its much further sun gingival.  Note in the images on the right with the Ti-Base, I screwed up the indexing as I could not see the notch.

Another image showing that mark on the buccal of the scan post, vs the ti base.  So if you are doing any intra oral scanning don’t use the ti-base to scan, only use it for your restoration.

Just because you can do your implant guided in Galileos, does not mean you can restore it in CEREC 4.2 with an abutment or a screw retained crown.  here is a list of available Ti-Bases.  Remember the three biggest clones are the TSV (Tapered Screw Vent), the Nobel Replace Tapered, The Nobel Active, and the Straumann Bone level.  So if your implant brand is not represented here, that does not mean you can’t restore it, check to see if your implant system is PROSTHETICALLY comparable and not just SURGICALLY compatible with the listed systems here.

Finally, if you are going to mill out an abutment you need to know what sizes are used.  In Emax we have the LT 16 which can be used for both abutments and for screw retained crowns.  The 14 MO lines are used for just abutments (they are much more opaque).  If you use a 14 MO for a screw retained crown it will be f-ugly.