Pursuit of Esthetics as Well as Function in Constructing Dental Arches

Abstract

Expressing the individual's gender, characteristics and age is important in achieving successful dynesthetic of the mouth. Particularly, the size, color, morphology and position of the anterior teeth possessing natural harmony play important roles. The following factors are involved in establishing the esthetics of the mouth : 1) the incisal embrasures created by the occlusal plane with bilateral symmetry and the teeth with vertically harmonious axes 2) harmonious lip and buccal support produced by the teeth placed with bilateral symmetry in a buccolingual or labiolingual direction 3) harmonious vertical dimensions. Thus, a beautiful smile line is established by harmonious lip and buccal support.
When examination and diagnosis of esthetic occlusion or fabrication of prostheses are performed on an articulator using an indirect method, spatial localization of the mandible and mandibular movement should also be reproduced on the articulator. To determine reference points that are common in a living body and an articulator, a face-bow transfer is generally adopted. According to the face-bow transfer, the transverse horizontal axis points are used as the posterior reference points, and the infraorbital margins are used as the anterior reference points.
However, the median vertical line that is expected to reproduce the median plane of the living body are often lost during transfer, also losing the horizontal coordinates that intersect perpendicularly to the median vertical line.
As is generally known, there are no esthetic indicators on the outside of the mouth reproduced on an articulator. This is clearly disadvantageous when fabricating prostheses as well as examining the following factors: the axes of the anterior teeth, bilateral symmetry of the occlusal plane, and symmetrical sagittal inclination of the occlusal plane, all of which are involved in producing a harmonious smile line most contributes to the esthetics, and bilateral symmetry of the dental arches producing harmonious lip support.
Recently, an esthetic face-bow has been developed to overcome this problem. This esthetic facebow uses the median plane as common coordinates of the living body and articulator. Excellent clinical as well as laboratory results have been obtained using this esthetic face-bow in diagnosing and constructing dental arches.