Introduction: CAD/CAM complete dentures were expected to provide better retention than conventional dentures, the current work tested the retention of complete dentures manufactured by conventional and/or digital workflows using a clinical direct pull-out of the maxillary complete dentures.
Materials and methods: Ten completely edentulous male patients participated in this study, each patient was provided with 3 dentures, a denture made with conventional techniques, then a denture made with combined conventional/digital techniques, and finally a denture made with digital techniques. Each denture was used for a period of one month, and at the end of the month, a denture pull-out retention test was conducted and the retentive forces of dentures in each group were collected, tabulated and statistically analyzed.
Results: Dentures made with combined conventional/digital techniques had more retention than dentures made with conventional techniques, and both had more retention than dentures made with digital techniques.
Conclusion: Combination of the conventional and digital workflows produced maxillary dentures with higher retention than those produced from conventional or digital workflows alone.