Shofu’s Beautifil Flow Plus® the Right Choice for Injection Bonding
Compendium features peer-reviewed articles and continuing education opportunities on restorative techniques, clinical insights, and dental innovations, offering essential knowledge for dental professionals.
February 1, 2023
Volume 44, Issue 2, February 2023
Page(s):
Injection bonding (IB) allows dentists to provide brilliant, gleaming cosmetic smile enhancements for their patients. The outcome resembles porcelain crowns and veneers, with improvements made to the size, shape, and color of the teeth visible in the smile; however, the material used is composite bonding resin rather than more costly porcelain.
The similarity to porcelain restorations is ensured because a model of the patient's existing condition is enhanced to Ideal Natural Form™, correcting problems like minor rotations and spacing, tooth size discrepancies, wear and tear, and unsightly color. Once the patient sees and approves the ideal model, a custom bonding shell may be fabricated, enabling the desired tooth forms to be transferred to the teeth quickly and accurately.
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IB is roughly half the cost of porcelain treatment. The work can be completed in one treatment visit of 2 to 3 hours (with no temporaries) and is painless, with anesthetic rarely needed. This treatment alternative is now possible due to advances in the chemistry and properties of modern composite bonding materials. An excellent example is Shofu Dental Corporation's Beautifil Flow Plus® flowable composite. The author uses it for his IB cases because the product works extremely well in his system, it is tough and durable, and with the use of Shofu's Super-Snap® disk polishers, he can deliver brilliant, gleaming smile enhancements with consistency and ease.
With careful case selection, informed consent, and a postoperative clear aligner-style nightguard provided, concerns about durability and longevity are minimized. Additionally, composite restorations can be easily spot-repaired in the ensuing years, if needed.
The author has been providing IB dentistry for 21 years and is credited with inventing the process, holding numerous patents on it. He recommends Beautifil Flow Plus flowable bonding composite exclusively for his personal casework, SmileBOND®'s training programs (SmileBOND Systems, LLC, smilebond.com), and for use with treatment kits created by SmileBOND Lab for other dentists delivering IB restorations.
Market analysts have predicted that cosmetic dentistry will grow to $25 billion by 2025. The author believes this figure does not include patients who would like to improve their smile but will not proceed because of the high cost of porcelain, fear of having their teeth ground down, and the time needed for orthodontic treatment.
IB is the key to unlocking and serving this vast pool of underserved patients. One such patient (Figure 1) could not move forward with cosmetic smile enhancement because of these obstacles. An IB option was presented, and with cost, fear, and time barriers to treatment removed, she was excited to proceed, and the work was completed in one 3-hour visit.
By William Vuillemot, DDS
William Vuillemot, DDS
Private Practice, Lansing, Michigan; Founder and Chief Executive Officer, SmileBOND Systems, LLC
Shofu Dental Corporation
800-827-4638
shofu.com
