Digital versus conventional impression technique for flabby ridge in complete denture construction

Background In the presence of flabby tissue, manufacturing a stable denture becomes a challenge. Flabby ridges will be easily displaced under occlusal stresses owing to unfavorable support, resulting in compromised denture retention. Intraoral digital impression has not been exposed to deal with this problem. Purpose To compare intraoral digital impression versus conventional selective pressure impression technique for maxillary flabby ridge registration in complete denture construction regarding soft tissue assessment. Patients and methods This crossover study enrolled seven completely edentulous patients with a localized maxillary anterior flabby ridge. Each patient received two identical maxillary complete dentures opposing one mandibular complete denture. The first denture was constructed using intraoral scanning of the edentulous maxillary ridge then compressing only the healthy tissues by 0.25 mm using Exocad software to simulate selective pressure technique, the second denture was constructed through conventional selective pressure impression technique. Each maxillary denture was subjectively evaluated for soft tissue response at 15 days and 3 months with 15 days rest period in between, data was statistically analyzed using χ2 test. Results There was statistically significant difference between the two maxillary dentures regarding soft tissue assessment in favor of the second maxillary denture. Conclusion Prosthodontist must pay more attention during intraoral scanning of edentulous arch due to lack of anatomical landmarks. More and more attention must be paid during intraoral scanning of edentulous ridges with flabby tissues due to the difference in the degree of mucosa compressibility.