Comparison of nonscheduled, postinsertion adjustment visits for complete dentures fabricated with conventional and CAD-CAM protocols: A clinical study.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM: Unscheduled denture-adjustment visits may disrupt both patients and clinicians. Denture-adjustment visits have not been correlated with denture-processing methods. PURPOSE: The purpose of this clinical study was to identify differences in the number of unscheduled postinsertion-adjustment visits of patients with complete dentures fabricated by injection molding (IM) versus dentures fabricated by computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAM). MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred six participants were evaluated in the study. They were consecutively treated in a private practice setting and followed up for 1 year after the insertion of new complete dentures. The first 33 received dentures fabricated using an IM system, and the other 73 were milled using a CAD-CAM system. All participants had been edentulous for at least 1 year. Participant ages ranged from 29 to 83 years. IM dentures were fabricated by a commercial dental laboratory; CAD-CAM dentures were milled by a commercial manufacturer. All participants were scheduled for 1- or 2-week postinsertion office visits. Further adjustment visits were scheduled according to participant request. The results were tabulated, and univariable tests of association were performed including chi-square and the Fisher exact tests for categorical comparisons and the Wilcoxon rank sum test for comparison of ordinal continuous data. A multivariable logistic regression model was used to control for the influence of multiple predictor variables on the outcome of interest. RESULTS: Edentulous years ranged from 1 to 60. Approximately one half (n=56) of all participants returned for scheduled postinsertion visits approximately 1 to 2 weeks after insertion of the dentures. No significant demographic or clinical differences were noted between participants receiving CAD-CAM or conventional dentures. Return visits for unscheduled adjustments were not associated with the method of denture fabrication or any other demographic features (P=.55). CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results of this study, there were no significant differences in the number of unscheduled, postinsertion visits for participants whose dentures were fabricated following IM or CAD-CAM milling protocols. Clinicians may choose to fabricate complete dentures with either protocol and expect similar clinical results in terms of the number of unscheduled postinsertion visits.