Abstract:

Dental wear under its different forms, such as abrasion and especially erosion, becomes more and more frequent in various populations around the globe. Recent studies indicate that the problem spreads on an epidemic scale and according to some researches the overall prevalence is estimated to be more than 30% (1) for permanent teeth of children and adolescents. All these data signify that in the near future dentists will be confronted with many patients and cases of severely worn dentitions and that the need of a comprehensive, affordable and systematic treatment approach is bigger than ever.
The paper presents a case report of the restoration of a severely worn dentition of a young patient followed up to the stage of finalized composite provisionals. The treatment follows with some minor modifications the “Geneva protocol” described by Belser and Vailati (2). The innovative part in the present case consists in the utilization of the jig of Le Gall (3) with some modifications allowing the device to be used not only in order to determine mandible centric position, but also as a useful instrument when resolving several esthetic and functional dilemmas. Thus the modified Le Gall jig becomes a treatment guideline substantively reducing the guesswork and allows even a well-trained general practitioner to deal with complex cases such as full-mouth reconstruction with a vertical dimension of occlusion (VDO) increase.