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Sir, handling of small ceramic glazed restorations can always be troublesome to many practitioners due to their small size and slippery nature. Many times clinicians find themselves delivering an indirect restoration to the wrong quadrant under pressure especially with cements exhibiting a short working time. Handling of single or multiple ceramic restorations with fingers prior to seating can incur several problems as well. First, fiddling with the restoration using fingers may result in a slip away during seating. Second, during the surface treatment and particularly prior to silane application, debris present on the gloves could contaminate the high surface energy intaglio surface which is particularly critical after etching.1 Third, during silane application, it is not uncommon for excess amount to spread and cover the glazed surface of the restoration due to silane's high wetting ability.2 This is clearly evident when the restoration is treated on a napkin as the saline wets the napkin and the napkin in turn wets the glazed surface especially after air thinning. This is problematic since it complicates excess cement removal after the cementation because of the affinity of the cement to the 'treated' glazed surface. Therefore, it is recommended to suspend the restoration in the air using a holder while performing salinisation. Commercially available sticks are not cost effective and their availability is limited in many countries. These sticks are also available in a single colour and therefore don't allow for colour coding restorations. Jogad et al. described using composite adapted to a microbrush as a holder for indirect restorations.3 However, using composite for such purpose is non-environmental and is a waste of valuable material since the holder will be disposed after light curing. To overcome the previous difficulties, we propose a simple method to create custom holders for easy pick up and handling of ceramic restorations using tacky putty. This is demonstrated in Figs 1, 2, 3, 4 by cutting the tip of the microbrush (Fig. 1), then adapting a piece of tacky putty to the microbrush with dry hands (Figs 2 and 3), and finally adapting the tacky putty to the dry glazed surface of the restoration (Fig. 4). The tacky putty could be removed by laterally peeling the holder after seating.
References
Jardel V, Degrange M, Picard B, Derrien G . Surface energy of etched ceramic. Int J Prosthodont 1999; 12: 415–418.
Matinlinna P, Lassila V, Özcan M, Yli-Urpo A, Vallittu K . An introduction to silanes and their clinical applications in dentistry. Int J Prosthodont 2004; 17: 155–164.
Jogad N, Patil P G, Gade V, Patil S . Alternative technique for handling indirect restorations during evaluation and cementation. J Prosthet Dent 2015; 114: 458–459.
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Abyad, A. Restorative dentistry: An innovative handling approach. Br Dent J 223, 745 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2017.1007
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bdj.2017.1007