Dental applications

From: Ian Gibson (University of Hong Kong), Tien-Min Chu (University of Michigan), Shoichi Terashima (Nissin DTM  Co., Ltd.)
To: Ian Gibson (University of Hong Kong), RP-ML
Date: Friday, September 15, 1995
Subject: Dental applications
On Fri, 15 Sep 1995, Ian Gibson wrote:
>I'm sure there must be some people out there who are using RP for dentistry. 
>Has anyone got any info? We have some people here who want to make dentures
>by scanning plasticine impressions.

     I don't know if anyone else has done this before and I think there are two
main issues to consider here: 1. we want the inner side of the denture
that fits to your mouth floor or your palate (tissue surface of the
denture) to accurately reproduce the shape of the impression we have taken
from patients' oral cavity, and 2. we want the surface of the denture to
be very smooth to avoid traumatizing the delicate oral mucosa. 
     With rapid prototyping technique, one can avoid the dimensional error in
the denture coming from the shrinkage of the impression material. However,
one also has to consider how well one can maintain the dimensional
accuracy after smoothing away the stair-steps on the tissue surface. The
question of how accurate is accurate really depends how well the patient
can tolerate the dimensional error, and that again depends on the amount
of tissue present between the oral mucosa and the underlying bone and
whcih is a factor of patient age, systemic condition, and etc. I think you
can discuss this with the prosthodontists that work with you. 
-Gabriel
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Tien-Min Gabriel Chu                  e-mail:ctmin@engin.umich.edu
Materials Science and Engineering     Home  :313-665-4811
Biologic and Material Sciences        Office:313-747-1132
University of Michigan                Fax   :313-763-4788
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Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 08:32:00 +0900
From: "S. Terashima" <NBD02111@niftyserve.or.jp>
     I know a customer who wants to make dentures for dentist students training.
He wants a 0.5 mm dia. canal in dentures filled with red liquid.
In his case, the opaque material would be suited for training purpose, 
since his student can realize, by spilling red flood, whether he has damaged 
his patient's nerves.
Best regards, for the sake of RP technology development.
+----------------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Shoichi Terashima                      | Phone : +81-75-315-9800           |
| Nissin-DTM Co., Ltd.                   | Fax   : +81-75-315-9811           |
| Kyoto Research Park SCB-3, Awata-cho 1,| E-mail: KYA02310@niftyserve.or.jp |
| Chudoji, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto 600 (Japan)|                                   |
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