The Chicago Midwinter Meeting is one of the premiere dental events in the world, with many companies using this opportunity to show case some of the latest tech in dentistry.
Our friend Anne Koelzer attended the event and wrote about her experience.
If you attended, let us know what you thought of it in the comments below!
About the Author
Anne Koelzer CDT
Coming from a family of dentists, Anne decided to put her artistic ability to use and opened AMK Dental Laboratory in 2014. Anne built her lab and is a full service laboratory serving in the heartland of Nebraska and in 2018, Anne switched her lab to fully digital. Living in rural Nebraska hasn't stopped Anne from taking advantage of technology, she is able to keep all her rural doctors up to date on the newest dental technology that is available to them and is also able to work with dentists throughout the states to help give their patients the best restorations possible.
There was a lot of excitement coming into Chicago Lab day 2023, as it's the first lab day since 2020 with no COVID restrictions! The atmosphere was building as a record number of people were slated to attend - and the companies presenting would surely be feeling the excitement. They were ready to release and showcase new equipment, software and materials to help revolutionize our always developing dental industry. As I attended lectures and walked the show room floors, 2 major things jumped out at me, 3D printers and resins.
Lucitone Digital Print
We are all familiar with Dentsply’s famous and dependable Lucitone 199 denture material, well, this resin is now in a 3D print material that is a high impact material. It comes in a base material and they have also been able to get their highly characterized IPN denture teeth into a resin and the tooth library is available in 3shape. The base material is available in shades light to dark pink and the digital IPN - premium tooth with translucency and esthetic detail expected in premium denture teeth - and lucitone digital value used for economy teeth and for your prototypesf. Lucitone Digital print can be used in the Carbon, Asiga printers and of course, Primeprint.
On the topic of the Asiga Printers, another great denture base that can be used in the Asiga printer is the Printodent GR-14.2 or Printodent GR-14.2 denture HI denture base. This resin is from Pro3Dure Medical, who have burst onto the dental scene with all their high quality dental resins.
The denture base is a biocompatible high impact resin that has outstanding chemical/physical properties and low viscosity to allow for an efficient printing process and easy cleaning. This denture base is strong and beautiful at the same time and the shades of the resins are very realistic and the rest of their resins are some of most premium products in the dental field, especially their GR-22 Flex material. This is a biocompatible resin for splints and nightguards.
The Asiga printer isn’t the only printer that can print the Pro3Dure materials. The Prusa Medical One printer is an ultra-fast 3D printer that delivers a high production of detailed and precise prints. This printer and its post processing unit are very affordable and great for dental offices and dental labs. This printer is in cooperation with Pro3Dure and can print all of their resins and is open to 3rd party materials.
CPD-100 3D Printer by Aidite
The CPD-100 is a new 3D printer from the company Aidite! This company is well known for its zirconia and now it seems they are making their way into the printer market. A sign of the times. This printer is said to be specifically developed and designed for dental prosthodontics and implants.
Prusa Medical One 3D Printer and the Pro3dure resins
This company started out as a medical company and moved into dentistry in 2019. The printer is a great desktop printer, that seems super sturdy and has very little issues. It supports all the Pro3dure resins. One of my favorite materials I use from these guys are the Thermeo nightguard material and the Printodent GR-22 Flex material. I just tested out their high impact denture resin and it is a great 3D printed base resin
Stratasys J3 and J5 3D printer
One of the coolest printer that I saw at lab day was Stratasys J5 DentaJet. It's a compact, lab- friendly environment and multi- material printer that is like having 3 different printers in one. You can have a rigid dental model, a surgical guide or a castable material all in one print. The most interesting feature of the printer is that, you can print a multi colored single rigid denture. This technology is revolutionizing digital dentures and 3D printing all in one.
DS Core
Dentsply Sirona’s cloud base platform allows for doctors to automatically have their intraoral scans, CBCT scans and with an open system any other patient data can be added to their file on “the cloud”. This also allows them to send even more information to labs so they can better provide the dentist and patient with the best product. The dentist will also be able to select their lab that they want to send their cases to. DS Core is essentially the new connect case portal for both dentists and labs once it is all finished with a lot more options for both clinicians and labs. Nice to see Dentsply finally offering a cloud solution!
Smile Line Optishade
A camera that you hook up to your phone and then take a picture of a tooth. Once the picture is taken it will shade match the rest of the teeth and give you a recipe of how to build the tooth, what shade of material to use and what shades of glaze to use. Neat!
And thats some of our top picks!
As you can see digital dentistry and especially printing is dominating almost every conference / trade show. Is is an exciting time for the industry!
Leave your comments or questions below 🙂