Dear Colleagues,

We hope this message finds you safe, healthy and prosperous! We are excited to share this newsletter with you about some information our office and a few recent cases and a few clinical pearls to help you in your practice.

Our office is staffed by 2 Board Certified Prosthodontists—Dr. Avinash Bidra and Dr. Xiao Chun Li who are committed to excellence and offer only the highest quality of dental treatment. Dr. Bidra also serves as Director of the Prosthodontics Residency Program at UConn Dental School in Farmington, CT. (Go Huskies! 17 times NCAA champions!) Our office is located right in the center of Glastonbury and we serve patients who travel from various parts of Connecticut and across the country.

As specialists, we are not only committed to helping patients with advanced dental needs, but also committed to helping other dentists who need help serving their own patients. Whether you are looking to just get some guidance on difficult cases that you want to complete on your own, or stuck halfway or need help referring patients with complex situations such as occlusal plane issues, vertical dimension challenges, multiple failing teeth, restorative space issues, or bone grafting failures or implant misangulation or implant failures, we are here to help! As an educator for 15 years, Dr. Bidra loves to teach!

We will offer complimentary consultation for your patients and refer them back to you for their maintenance after treatment is complete. We are out of network with all dental insurances but will offer your patients a very fair and reasonable price for their treatment. Our office is certified for IV sedation and we will provide a safe and comfortable “one stop” experience for their dental treatment. Please check out the cases of the month and please visit our website at for additional such cases. Thank you for your time and look forward to working with you!

This patient with a severe Class III malocclusion and failing upper and lower teeth was referred to Dr Bidra by his general dentist. On clinical assessment, patient demonstrated severe collapse of his vertical dimension of occlusion. After a comprehensive assessment of facial esthetics, vertical dimension, teeth display, available bone, a decision was made to increase vertical dimension in a systematic way and removal of all existing teeth and removal or truncating existing implants and placement of 6 new implants in each jaw to support a full arch fixed zirconia prosthesis. In the maxilla a metal bar was fabricated to support the overlay zirconia prosthesis to compensate for the skeletal discrepancy. Full mouth extractions and double jaw All on 4 treatment was completed with immediate loading following the Teeth in a Day protocol. No bone grafting was done which was a significant advantage to the patient and the patient eventually received Monolithic zirconia bridges. Total time in treatment was 7 months. Patient was ecstatic with the result and to have avoided orthognathic surgery and has given full permission to share his full face photographs.

The patient presented to Dr Li with narrow-diameter implants placed by another dentist, in close proximity at sites #8 and #9, resulting in both biological and prosthetic challenges. She was dissatisfied with the existing restorations due to their disproportionate appearance. To improve esthetics, the implants were re-restored with splinted crowns incorporating pink porcelain to recreate the lost papilla. Teeth #7 and #10 were also reshaped to harmonize with the new central incisor proportions. The result was a balanced, natural-looking smile, and the patient was very pleased with the outcome. The treatment was completed in 5 weeks.

Use a safety checklist while performing implant procedures.

Throughout the world, dental implant therapy continues as a highly successful modality for replacing missing teeth, and its popularity remains high among general dental practitioners and dental specialists. Nevertheless, as dental implant therapy includes multiple steps, and is an elective procedure, clinicians must strive to provide a safe and high quality treatment for patients. With the increase in the number of clinicians performing implant surgeries, the number of complications and surgical errors is expected to increase. Some of these errors will be minor and self-resolving, but some will have serious medical-legal consequences. One method of minimizing errors in the practice of surgery is the use of perioperative surgical and prosthodontic safety checklists. Dr. Bidra has published Implant Surgery Safety Checklists and Prosthodontics Safety Checklists in the Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry and these articles have been very popular and enclosed is a QR code for you to access and download these articles. All the best with your next implant procedure!

We offer complimentary consultations and will refer patients back to you for maintenance after treatment is complete.