Interproximal Reduction Templates with Guide Slots
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current dental procedures for interproximal reduction lack precision and accuracy, often resulting in undesired tooth shapes and additional procedures due to difficulties in clean and accurate cutting of tooth surfaces, leading to residual crowding and potential damage to adjacent tissues.
Innovation Solution
The development of interproximal reduction templates or guides made from resilient materials like zirconium or porcelain, which fit over teeth and feature guide slots to direct cutting tools, ensuring precise and controlled removal of dental tissue, while windows allow visualization for correct seating and prevention of over-cutting or under-cutting.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If manual interproximal reduction is performed without guides, then the procedure is simpler and faster to perform, but the cutting precision and accuracy deteriorate, resulting in undesired tooth shapes and potential damage to adjacent tissues
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces interproximal reduction guides as intermediary devices that mediate between the dentist and the cutting tool. These guides provide pre-determined cutting paths and depth limitations, ensuring precise material removal while protecting adjacent tissues. The guides act as a mediator that translates the treatment plan into accurate physical cuts without requiring the dentist to manually measure and control each cutting parameter.
Solution Approach 2:
The cutting paths and reduction amounts are predetermined in the guides before the actual procedure. The guides are fabricated based on digital treatment plans, with pre-programmed slot positions, angles, and depths. This preliminary preparation ensures that when the dentist uses the guides during the procedure, the precision is already built into the tool itself, eliminating the need for real-time decision-making about cutting parameters.
2Reliability
If more material is removed to ensure space for tooth alignment, then residual crowding is reduced, but the risk of over-cutting and damage to adjacent tissues increases
Solution Approach 1:
The guides are designed to remove slightly more material than the minimum required, ensuring adequate space for tooth alignment. However, this 'excessive' removal is carefully controlled within safe margins that prevent damage to adjacent tissues. The guides incorporate safety features such as depth stoppers and angled slots that limit the maximum removal to predetermined safe thresholds, allowing the dentist to confidently remove sufficient material without risking over-cutting.
Solution Approach 2:
The guides provide visual and physical feedback to the dentist during the procedure. The slots in the guides show exactly how much material has been removed and how much remains. This feedback mechanism allows the dentist to monitor the reduction process in real-time, ensuring that the treatment achieves sufficient space creation while stopping before any harmful over-cutting occurs. The feedback is built into the guide structure itself through the visible progression of the cutting tool through the slots.
3Manufacturing precision
If multiple additional procedures are performed to fix overlap or underlap, then tooth alignment is eventually achieved, but the treatment time and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The guides are fabricated based on comprehensive digital treatment plans that anticipate all necessary adjustments. The cutting paths, angles, and depths are pre-calculated to achieve the desired tooth positions in a single procedure. This preliminary planning ensures that when the guides are used, the tooth shapes are created with such precision that no additional procedures are needed to correct overlaps or underlaps, thereby eliminating the time loss associated with multiple visits.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual trial-and-error cutting with a digitally-guided mechanical system. The guides translate complex 3D treatment plans into simple physical cutting paths that can be followed with basic handpieces. This substitution of sophisticated digital planning for manual skill reduces variability and ensures consistent, accurate results that eliminate the need for corrective procedures, thereby reducing overall treatment time.
Data Source
AI summary
Interproximal reduction guides apparatuses and methods of making and using them are described herein. These interproximal reduction guides apparatuses may include a body that fits over the patient's dental arch and one or more guide slots formed in them configured to limit the motion of an interproximal reduction cutting tool in a defined manner.