Visalys CemCore to the Rescue
By Lon McRae, DMD
Can a cement be a hero in your dental practice? We all have dental emergencies, and our team policy is to try to see a patient the day of their emergency. That being said, it always seems to be that we get those calls at the end of the day—the patient wants to be seen, the schedule is packed, there is no time, and we are tired. Oh, and the patient wants a miracle. This seems to happen all the time.
Case In Point
A couple months back, we had an 85-year-old male present at 4:30 pm after losing a 25-year-old crown that morning while eating breakfast. He wanted it re-cemented at the end of a very busy day. The patient had no pain. The margins were great...but the problem was that you could see those great margins because the entire tooth was in the existing crown. The treatment plan included extraction and implant in a two-stage approach, but the patient still wanted the crown re-cemented.
The patient was scheduled for 3 weeks out for the extraction and implant. We told the patient that the cement might not hold the tooth together even long enough to make it out of the office, but that we would give it a try with a new cement from Kettenbach called Visalys CemCore. This is a new cement designed to replace all the cements in a dental office, and it is a 2-in-1 product that also works great as a core buildup material.
Visalys CemCore has an incredible bond strength, a great working time, and is very easy to clean. These are the reasons we decided to try it on this case.
The kit includes a restorative primer and tooth primer, but in this case, we only used the tooth primer because it was for a tooth-to-tooth surface. We placed a small amount of Visalys CemCore on both surfaces of the root surface to be bonded. We then placed the crown and, since this is a dual cure, we did light cure with a tack and wave just to remove excess. It was extremely easy to remove the excess. We then had the patient bite down for 3 minutes to have the cement under the PFM cure since the light could not reach those areas.
Still Going Strong
Three weeks later, the crown was still on. However, we had to delay treatment because COVID-19 had resulted in the office being closed. It has now been 6 weeks, and the patient still has the crown. He says everything is feeling great, but knows he still needs the final treatment.
Thank you, Visalys CemCore, for being the hero that day and getting the team out on time.
Dr. Lon McRae graduated from Oregon Health Sciences University School of Dentistry in 1996 and has since had a successful practice in Meridian, ID. He has continued his dental education with some of the most advanced functional and esthetic courses available in dentistry. In 2000, Dr. McRae received an advanced degree from Pacific Aesthetic Continuum. A lecturer and instructor, his work has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD). He is a respected member of the AACD, ADA, and the Crown Council.