Background: Computer-aided design (CAD)/computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) dentures
are suppose to have more favorable material properties than conventional heat - cured acrylic
dentures, among them a lesser methacrylate monomer release.
The purpose of this clinical study: Was to evaluate the retention quality of conventional heatcure
acrylic denture bases and digitally milled maxillary complete denture bases.
Material and methods: This study was done on six edentulous patients; CAD/CAM dentures
were constructed from six different master casts by using CAD/ CAM system. Conventional heatcure
acrylic dentures acted as a control group. Universal testing machine was used to measure the
retention of the denture. Every denture base was subjected to a slowly increasing vertical load until
the denture was totally out of place 5 times at 10-minute intervals. The average retention of the two
assemble methods was analyzed using Independent t-test & Paired t-test.
Results: CAD/CAM denture showed statistically significant higher mean retention value than
conventional denture at insertion and after one-month (P value<0.000, <0.000) respectively.
Conclusion : Compared with the traditional manual method, the retention of the maxillary
complete denture prepared using the CAD/CAM method for the edentulous alveolar ridge was
significantly higher, meaning that the CAD/CAM method can meet the clinically acceptable
precision for design and development of complete dentures as trial for restoring edentulous jaws.