Mark Ambridge

Presenting at the Astra Atlantis launch at 'Altitude 29000' Millbank Tower, London Feb 20th. 2009

Evolution or Revolution?

I'm incredibly excited about recent developments.

Just on a train journey back from London and still going over in my mind the scale of what we've just seen.

As dental technicians there has always been a very frustrating obstacle between delivering what we know to be best for our patients and what we can actually offer. What's the obstacle? Cost!

Unfortunately in order to produce implant restorations which are affordable we sometimes have to use modified stock abutments, which is fine if you have a well placed implant but if not, compromise creeps in. That's all about to change and rapidly, at least for implant restorations.

Thanks to the technology offered by Atlantis from Astra Tech we can now offer full custom abutments for less than the cost of the current cheapest option on the market, modified stock abutments.

The official UK launch of this product was on Friday 20th January at Altitude 29,000 on the 29th floor of the Millbank tower (stunning views across London)

We were very fortunate to be invited into a small group of UK pre launch laboratories who started using the system along with our surgical partners in August 2008 which meant that when we were invited to present the technology to other technicians we were absolutely delighted (and also a little nervous) to do so.

I apologise now if it sounds like I'm trying to sell this system but I cannot stress enough how exciting it is to be given such a useful tool in delivering fantastic restorations.

Avaliability and benefits

1. Restorative options : These abutments are available in zirconia and titanium including Goldhue (an alternative to cast gold abutments)

2. Superior Design: Patient specific abutments which are designed from the final restoration backwards ensures that adequate support is provided for the final restoration which avoids 'lollipop' crowns.

3. Cost. Due to the great time saving by using a CAD/CAM system we are now able to deliver these superior abutments for less than the cost of modified stock abutments which are currently the cheapest option available on the market.

for more information please feel free to visit the sites below

Dr Scott Ganz has been promoting and developing this technology with his team for many years now. For more information from him on the benefits of these patient specific abutments visit his site http://www.drganz.com/

For further information on how this technology is used in our own line of Smart abutments and the cost benefits please visit http://sites.google.com/site/ambridgeceramics/

I would like to thank all of our dedicated team who have helped to integrate this system so effectively into our laboratory, our surgeons and all the Astra team for allowing us the opportunity to use this groundbreaking technology in the trial stages.

We're proud to now be able to offer what I know to be the best restoration options to all my surgeons and at a reduced cost. This truly is a win/win situation without compromise which is not just evolutionary it's revolutionary!