ABSTRACT Intraoral scanning of a severely atrophic mandible remains challenging because of limited crestal landmarks, mobile soft tissues, and restricted scanner access. This dental technique describes a workflow that combines a patient-specific 3-dimensionally printed retractor, temporary parasymphyseal miniscrews as fiducial markers, and implant scan bodies (ISBs) splinted with an orthodontic elastomeric chain and flowable resin for a severely atrophic mandibular arch. The retractor improves exposure of the peri-implant mucosa, the miniscrews provide detectable landmarks for alignment, and the splinted ISBs help record interimplant relationships.
Ruggiero et al. (Mon,) studied this question.