Abstrait

Study of Flexible and Rigid Removable Partial Prostheses Indications in Iraq

Ibrahim H Alfahdawi

Esthetics of denture as defined by glossary of prosthodontics terms is "the effect produced by the prosthesis that affects the beauty and attractiveness of the person". When planning of treatment for patients with partial edentulous, the esthetics and masticatory function would be taken into consideration. Esthetic restoration of removable partial denture (RPD) is an important function and it determines the treatment successful. The role of achieving optimal esthetics, while maintaining retentive integrity, stability and protecting the teeth health are the most difficult task. Removable partial prosthesis is a repulsive modality of treatment that we still must rely upon for some cases and is a part of the practice. But these patients expect prosthesis to look as esthetic as any other contemporary modality of treatment. Since 2013, the Iraqi Dental Association/Baghdad was contacted and provide a list of (68) dental laboratories cell phone directory. All dental laboratories listed were contacted and invited to contribute in this study and asked about their laboratories equipment's to flexible and hard acrylic removal partial dentures with modified clasps. Respondents were also asked to forward new cases of regarding fabrication of flexible and hard dentures they had received from clinicians. From 68 dental laboratories listed, four (5.88%) were noncontact able, and five (7.35%) not responding to take part in this study, fourteen (20.58%) of the remaining laboratories did not have the facilities to fabricate flexible dentures on their office and concentrated on hard acrylic prostheses, leaving forty five (66.17%) laboratories contributing in this study. The remaining laboratories had the facilities to fabricate flexible and rigid (with lingual clasp modification) dentures on their office. There is no study has been previously carried out in Iraq, this investigation research to provide baseline data in this area. Consequently, the analysis of data collected used a quantitative rather than qualitative method. The fabrication of flexible denture indicated differences between these types of denture rather than acrylic rigid denture.