Virtual patient-based fully digital workflow for confirming jaw relationship: A dental technique

For patients with terminal dentition and occlusal interference resulting from long-term partial edentulism, determining a reliable jaw relationship before extraction is challenging. The present technique addresses this by introducing a digital workflow for establishing and transferring the jaw relationship. A 3-dimensionally printed custom gothic arch tracer was first used to register the optimal centric relation. Combined with facial scans, the mandible was then virtually rotated to establish the vertical dimension. On this basis, preoperative denture tooth arrangement and implant planning were completed, and the pre-operative jaw relationship was transferred postoperatively by matching bone fiducials. This technique eliminated the need for complete denture fabrication to establish jaw relationships, allowing extractions to be performed simultaneously with implant surgery, thereby reducing both cost and chairside time.