A Novel Design of a Pick-up-Type Impression Coping

Dental impressions are used to produce a replica of an oral structure for use as a permanent record or in the production of a dental restoration or prosthesis. Accurate impression-taking is an essential procedure in implant dentistry. Traditionally, clinicians have used two different implant impression techniques: transfer and pick-up. The pick-up impression technique is considered to be the more accurate of the two because with this technique the impression copings are maintained within the impression upon removal from the mouth, thus eliminating the potential for error that may occur when manually placing the copings in the impression as in the transfer technique. This design has become increasingly popular and useful for multi-unit impressions. The purpose of this article is to review various pick-up impression copings and propose a new impression coping design for accurate, easy impression-taking without discrepancies.