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Are dentine pins obsolete?

From Volume 40, Issue 4, May 2013 | Pages 253-258

Authors

Stephen J Bonsor

BDS(Hons) MSc FHEA FDS RCPS(Glasg) FDFTEd FCGDent GDP

The Dental Practice, 21 Rubislaw Terrace, Aberdeen; Hon Senior Clinical Lecturer, Institute of Dentistry, University of Aberdeen; Online Tutor/Clinical Lecturer, University of Edinburgh, UK.

Articles by Stephen J Bonsor

Abstract

Dentine pins have been used in operative dentistry for many years to retain a non-adhesive restorative material (such as dental amalgam) in a cavity which has little or no inherent mechanical retention. However, dentine pin placement can be a hazardous procedure and there are a number of problems associated with their use. Alternative techniques have been described which may be utilized and are effective at retaining the restorative material without the shortcomings of dentine pins. There is a strong argument therefore that dentine pins have no place in contemporary dental practice and have consequently become obsolete.

Clinical Relevance: Auxiliary retention may be required to retain direct intra-coronal dental restorations in unretentive cavities.

Article

As traditional dental materials, in particular dental amalgam, have no inherent ability to bond to tooth tissue, they have to be retained in an unretentive cavity by mechanical means, this being a topic covered in the first issue of Dental Update.1 This retention is required in two planes: axially and laterally. Retention may be defined as ‘the features of the cavity preventing withdrawal of the restoration in the long axis of the preparation whilst resistance form describes those features preventing dislodgement of the restoration under all other forms of loading’.2

Dentine pins were invented at the end of the 1960s3 as a means of mechanically retaining dental amalgam in unretentive cavities, such as where a cusp or proximal surface was missing4 (Figure 1). Dentine pins became widely used in operative dentistry and have also been used to retain and support a subsequently placed cast restoration indirectly by retaining the restorative core material in extensively damaged teeth.

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