I recently stumbled upon a fantastic piece of equipment in a dental office. The Cadent iTero is a digital impression system that completely replaces traditional impression materials, trays, and models. The machine is quite large, a bit wider than a Cerec scanner. It has a monitor on top, a full-size keyboard, and a camera wand built into it. Essentially, the entire machine is a rolling computer with an intraoral camera built in.
When you start the machine, it asks you for several pieces of information about the patient and the impression you are taking (including the shade of the tooth). When the proper data has been entered, you begin taking scans. The camera is really just an intraoral camera, but the software has you take several photos of the same tooth, from varying angles, all guided by the on screen instructions.
Once you have captured enough images, they are compiled to form a 3D map, and an extremely accurate 3D model is generated. This digital model can then be sent to a Cerec machine to have a restoration milled, or to the company’s headquarters. At Cadent they create a model for you to send to your lab. The quality of the models made by the company is very high. The detail is like nothing I have ever seen before.
The benefits of this machine are numerous.
First and most obvious – you never need to buy impression material again, and there is no need to make the patient sit with a loaded tray of impression material in their mouth, gagging, while you wait for the putty to set to just the right consistency. Retaking the impression is free – just rescan the image.
Of course, the machine looks cool and high-tech, so the patient is impressed, and it’s likely that they will tell their friends and family about you. In addition, this is exactly the type of tool that would make a great media story, as we discussed in a previous post (link to old post).
The Cadent iTero is what technology should be all about in a dental office; save time, save money, and get better results. You can find out more about the Cadent iTero, including watching videos of the machine in use, by visiting http://www.cadentitero.com.
Tags for this article :Dental Equipment Intra Oral CamerasTags: Dental Equipment, Intra Oral Cameras
