Lately there has been talk about margins, marginal integrity, and the ability to read our margins accurately with our Omnicam. Of course it’s easy to blame Omnicam, right? Most of us could have found our margins in the dark, blindfolded with our Bluecams or Redcams. Just like traditional crown and bridge, with ANY CEREC procedure you must manage three components; prep, soft tissue, & impression. Get very organized when prepping for your restoration. Plan your margin and make sure it is smooth and readable when taking your digital impression. Whether you are using a shoulder or well defined chamfer make sure the axial transition is rounded and smooth. If you are having problems with this, use a bur block that has already figured it out for you, like the cerecdoctors.com block by Coltene.

Manage soft tissue well with cord, laser, or one of the retraction paste systems such as Retraction Paste from 3M, Traxodent, or Exposyl from Kerr. Finally, make sure your digital impression captures ALL of the necessary information including your entire margin clearly. Take the time to review the digital impression before moving forward and re-picture areas that are missing data important to marginal accuracy. As in any dental procedure, success with CEREC is a series of small steps that, when done well, lead to a final restoration with margins that can be virtually undetectable.