Electric Advantage: Better Preps and Margins

Preps and margins are essential to a successful crown and bridge procedure, but are often the least consistent aspect of a dentist’s technique. This is challenging, because a good margin is the first domino in ensuring a patient’s crown is clinically and technically successful. Electric handpieces are one way to provide dentists with a more steady touch and consistent outcome in creating preps and margins. 

Pamela Maragliano-Muniz, DMD is the chief editor of DentistryIQ and a board-certified, award-winning prosthodontist in Salem, MA. In her own practice, Dr. Maragliano-Muniz sees a marked difference when using an electric handpiece. 

“I don't remember the last time my lab said I can't read your margins and I think, without a doubt, that a lot of it has to do with the handpieces I use,” she shared. “My preps are also markedly more efficient. Because of the constant torque of an electric handpiece, it just prepares the tooth more. The handpiece doesn't slow down as you touch the tooth. Instead, the handpiece maintains the same torque, so it allows you to prepare the tooth a lot more efficiently.”

With an electric handpiece, a dentist’s preps are cleaner, smoother, and more reliable. Since the teeth are prepared in a more reliable way, dentists are able to be more efficient when inserting the crown, implant or other device that is necessary for the patient. The increase in efficiency and in cleaner preps and margins due to an electric handpiece can change the efficiency of a practice and increase the diversity of procedures that are treated.