A Smart Digital Workflow Towards High Precision and Through-Put Production for Removable Partial Dentures

Tooth loss is a major chronic problem in dentistry and edentulous elderly endures poorer quality of life worldwide. Removable partial dentures (RPDs) are the most widely accepted and cost-effective treatment for patients to restore oral functions. RPDs contain three components including the metal framework, denture base and acrylic teeth. Conventionally, RPD fabrication involves tedious clinical and dental laboratory procedures and is time consuming, labour-intensive, and often imprecise, therefore incapable of meeting the growing demands of RPD by an ageing population. The challenges to achieve a high quality and high-throughput RPD service lie in three aspects: 1) accuracy in capturing oral profile; 2) immediate oral information analysis and device design, and 3) automation in production.