Management of a Complex Case using Conventional Complete Denture Restorations

Clinical experience has demonstrated that in complete edentulous patients, more than in other areas of prosthetics, particularities of the case play an important role. The prosthodontic treatment must provide restorations that are bio-functional and bio-prophylactic for the surrounding tissues. In this aim, an edentulous patient must be submitted to a methodical clinical examination in order to establish the degree of difficulty of the prosthetic treatment. Additional investigation as cephalometric radiographs can be useful. In our daily practice, we are rarely confronted with a normal morphology of the denture bearing oral structures. Managing abused tissues in a patient with morphologic abnormalities due to faulty prostheses sometimes proves difficult. Preventing the deterioration of oral status must be a condition in providing a chance for the success of the following rehabilitations, mainly in the situation when the complete edentulousness appears in a young or middle age patient. This article is a clinical report on the prosthodontic management of a severe mandibular atrophy with a particular conformation of the alveolar crest correlated with the necessity of a maxillary immediate complete denture in a patient with dramatic perturbation of esthetics.