Masticatory performance evaluation in patients with natural teeth and after rehabilitation wearing upper, lower and bimaxillary immediate removable complete dentures – Clinical cases report

Abstract

One of the immediate removable denture’s purposes is to minimize the damages caused by dental loss due to periodontal disease. Therefore, it's essential to learn more about this type of oral rehabilitation. Since the masticatory function is an important criteria for evaluating the proposed treatment, this study analyzed three clinical cases by observing masticatory performance in individuals with natural teeth and in individuals wearing upper, lower, and bimaxillary immediate removable complete dentures maintaining the occlusal pattern, immediately before teeth extractions and six months after its installation and rebasing. An “Optocal” food simulator was chewed in 40 bites visually monitored by a single calibrated examiner. The chewed material was placed in a set of eight granulometric sieves. After sifting, the content retained in each sieve was kiln-dried and individually weighed. Patients who were rehabilitated with bimaxillary immediate removable complete dentures showed similar masticatory behavior, resulting in masticatory performance reduction. However, the patient wearing lower immediate removable complete denture showed improves in masticatory performance. These patients take part in a research project in which other similar cases are being studied.