Custom Abutments
Dandy custom abutments are designed and engineered according to your patient’s unique anatomy. Utilizing CAD/CAM technology we ensure a predictable result, a lifelike emergence profile, and precise marginal fit.
Dandy’s custom abutment offering
Custom Titanium Abutments
Provide your patients a custom-fit long-lasting restoration. Our custom titanium abutments are tailored to the unique anatomy of your patient. By considering the patient’s gum tissue contours, custom abutments promote healthy and natural integration with the surrounding soft tissues, resulting in improved aesthetics and gum health. These are a popular option among our dentists.
Zirconia hybrid custom abutments
Aesthetic cases in the smile zone are a perfect opportunity for a zirconia abutment. When shade is a concern, zirconia blocks out any gray or gold colors. These custom abutments can be used with screw-retained, cement-retained and screwmentable single-unit implant.
Custom abutments vs stock abutments
Stock abutments are easier to source and cheaper to produce. There is no separate design process needed for stock abutments; the crown is simply designed to fit over the stock abutment.
Custom abutments take longer to source and are more expensive to manufacture. A designer will design the custom abutment to fit snugly in the patient’s emergence profile, and a crown must be separately designed to fit on top of the custom abutment. Custom abutments are more versatile and can be designed for complex cases.
Which custom abutment should you choose?
Whether you’re new to placing implants or you prefer to get a second opinion, here is the criteria you can use to determine which abutment type you should choose for your next implant case.
Abutment retention options
Crown with screw access hole.
- One piece restoration
- Restoration will have an access hole for retrievability
- No cementing needed
Crown with no screw access hole.
- Crown and abutment come separately with no access hole on crown
- Doctor will cement the crown to abutment in the patient’s mouth
- Not retrievable
Designed to support a cementable restoration, the crown is created with a screw access hole. This allows the cementing portion to occur outside of the patient’s mouth.
- Abutment and crown come separately
- Doctor will cement the crown to abutment in the patient’s mouth
- Crown will have an access hole for retrievability
Material composition
Abutments can either be made out of entirely titanium or of a hybrid of titanium and zirconia. Titanium abutments can be anodized with gold.
Custom abutment specifications
- Titanium custom milled for patient-specific abutment
- Custom design controls marginal depth, angulation, parallelism and tissue contour
- Most durable with excellent crown support
92% of Dandy implant cases utilize custom titanium abutments - Used for screw retained, cementable, and screwmentable restorations
- Zirconia abutment with a titanium interface
Custom design controls marginal depth, angulation, parallelism and tissue contour - Preferred in aesthetic areas
- Used for screw retained, cementable, and screwmentable restorations
Custom abutments FAQ
Yes, we can work digitally with Bicon (specifically Bicon scan body and custom or stock abutment), or you can place a stock abutment, and scan it for us to make a crown to go over it. Dandy is not familiar with whether Kat implants have a digital workflow, but you can also place a stock abutment and scan for this system in the same way, if desired.
Ultimately the design or our ti base cases and our custom abutment cases will have the same emergence profile. From implant platform, through the tissue displacement, to the contact with adjacent teeth.
When the custom abutment is designed to support a cementable restoration, but the crown is created with a screw access hole. This allows the doctor to cement the crown to the abutment, and once done the crown can then be removed if needed, by unscrewing the screw through the access hole. This is called retrievability, having the ability to remove the abutment/crown if needed. Without this access hole, the crown would need to be cut off in order to gain access to the securing screw.
The lab will create a one piece crown/abutment assembly (cemented together by the lab) with a hole in it that aligns with the implant. This type of crown can be inserted directly into the implant, and secured with a screw placed into the access hole and tightened. In general, this is the preferred option as securing the crown with a screw is cleaner than cementing the crown to the abutment in the patient’s mouth, but can be more difficult to hide the screw when it comes to anterior cases.
When a doctor attaches the crown to the abutment with cement in a patient’s mouth. The benefit of the cementable crown is that there are no access holes to be concerned with, if the hole might have been in a visible area.
Ready to use Dandy as your new lab for implant restorations?
Talk to our team about your practice getting started with Dandy. We’ll answer your questions and tell you about our digital dental services.
