Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Modern dental bridges are a fully-functional, highly cosmetic solution to the problem of missing teeth. In a dental bridge, the pontic (or pontics, though bridges are rarely recommended for very many teeth) are fastened to a neighboring tooth or neighboring teeth. This can be done either by modifying the supporting teeth with a dental crown, or it can be done using dental bonding that bond the pontic directly to the other teeth.

Bridges are near-perfect prostheses from both a functional and a cosmetic standpoint. Their only problem comes if bacteria begins to collect under the pontic as a result of poor oral hygiene. Their dependence on other teeth can also be a drawback, because they either require neighboring teeth to be modified with crowns, or if directly bonded they can fail if a neighboring tooth fails.

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