The digital factory in both the modern dental lab and clinic

Significant technological advances are occurring in the dental industry that are complementary to the introduction of monolithic restorative materials. Glidewell Laboratories has been at the forefront of innovation of these developments and these internal developments may be instructive of future trends in dentistry.

This paper examines internal Glidewell data from 2010 to 2019 about zirconia-related technology and provides context for some technological advancements at Glidewell Laboratories.

The trend towards increased use of monolithic zirconia in both, posterior and anterior regions continues to grow. With the advent of intraoral scanners and chairside CAD/CAM technologies, more and more dentists are able to provide same day dentistry. Despite the many clinicians that have made the leap to digital dentistry the low rate of growth in ownership and utilization means PVS impression will be common place long into the future. Glidewell Laboratories has an advanced, automated impression scanning, AI crown design, automated milling and glazing system extending the advantages of digital dentistry to all dentists and pushing the bounds of the technology further.

This paper describes the first use of AI GAN to design dental crowns and also shows the strong path monolithic zirconia restorations are paving into the future. Supporting technologies will continue to evolve around zirconia and this paper provides a snapshot of those that exist and a few that are in development.