The influence of spacers on forces exerted on the abutment teeth of complete mandibular overdentures

The avoidance of lateral forces on overdenture retainers is essential to prevent pathological change in the supporting tissues of the root abutment. In this study, the influence of spacer thickness on the vertical and lateral forces exerted on overdenture abutments was examined clinically. Two subjects with an edentulous maxilla, two canines and a left first premolar remaining in the mandible were selected for the experiment. The anchor type attachment was embedded in the left canine portion of the denture base. The transducer used for the previous study (Ogata et al., 1990), was embedded in this left canine portion. The transducer could detect the magnitude and direction of lateral forces exerted on an abutment tooth parallel to the Camper's plane. The other transducer was embedded in the left first mandibular premolar area, and could detect vertical forces exerted on the abutment tooth perpendicular to the Camper's plane. Furthermore, the transducer could change the space between a denture base and an abutment tooth to 1.5 mm, 0.6 mm or 0.3 mm. Therefore measurements could be made in the same way as if three experimental dentures had been used with a different thickness spacer. Recordings of forces were taken during food chewing, using each spacer on the day of denture insertion and twice at intervals of 1-2 weeks thereafter. The results demonstrated that as spacer thickness decreased, the magnitude of the lateral forces decreased, while the magnitude of the vertical forces increased. These findings suggest that a large part of the lateral component of forces exerted on an abutment tooth could be converted into a vertical component by using a thinner spacer.