CLINICAL EFFECTIVENESS OF TITANIUM CAD/CAM RETAINERS FROM A BIOCHEMICAL POINT OF VIEW

Following the integration of fixed retainers into the clinical practice, an increasing number of orthodontists pre-fer this retention method. Further to the proven advantages of those retainers, however, there are some deficiencies, which, if not taken into consideration, might compromise the good treatment result. CAD-CAM methods employ a different approach in design, materials and method of fab-rication, and clinical procedures with respect to fixation. This allows for the avoidance of a large part of the defi-ciencies of the fixed retainers that are made manually.Aim: Our aim is to demonstrate the clinical effec-tiveness of titanium CAD/CAM fixed retainers.Materials and methods: Swing (DOF) Laboratory scanner was used to scan the models. Retainers were de-signed through Exocad Matera (Exocad GmbH) software. Retainers were fabricated of titanium Ti G5 (SILADENT Dr Bohme & Schops GmbH) discs, machined with CORiTEC 650i (Imes-icore GmbH) 5-axis dental milling machine. Results: The outcome is a retainer, which is excel-lently fitting to the dental surface, absolutely passive, re-sistant to plastic deformation, fracture-proof and with an extremely easy clinical fixing procedure. Conclusion: CAD/CAM methods employ an inno-vative approach, providing a different manufacturing tech-nology and the use of various materials for the purposes of fixed retention. These methods eliminate a significant part of the deficiencies of the conventional manually bent re-tainers.