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Spear Digest Dental Articles

How to Diagnose a Gummy Smile with Crown-Length Problems

How to Diagnose a Gummy Smile with Crown-Length Problems

In a recent article, we revealed the seven possible etiologies that can cause a gummy smile. In patients with short anterior teeth, only three of those...

| 11 years ago
Three Key Tooth Positions for Your Orthodontist
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Three Key Tooth Positions for Your Orthodontist

When upper lateral incisors are missing and the treatment plan is to substitute the upper cuspids to replace the upper lateral incisors, when and how...

| 11 years ago
Templates Improved
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Templates Improved

The ingenius treatment planning template created by Frank Spear many years ago has been added to. The template gives the restorative dentist a visual...

| 11 years ago
Thinking Outside the Box: Orthodontic Substitution

Thinking Outside the Box: Orthodontic Substitution

In certain cases with young patients, traditional therapy can be inadequate or even impossible. In a recent article, I discussed the autotransplantation...

| 11 years ago
Thinking Outside the Box: Autotransplantation

Thinking Outside the Box: Autotransplantation

Sometimes our job hands us tooth replacement cases in which traditional treatment therapy is either inadequate or impossible. For instance, young...

| 11 years ago
Four Key Steps to Facial Crown Lengthening

Four Key Steps to Facial Crown Lengthening

When we think of an attractive smile, we are referring to one that lines up smoothly with the lower lip and displays even gingival levels. When a patient...

| 11 years ago
When Life Hands You Lemon-Suckers ...

When Life Hands You Lemon-Suckers ...

Odds are you've seen a significant amount of tooth wear in your practice. They are all out there – the lemon-suckers and the night-grinders –...

| 11 years ago
Four Easy Steps to Midline Inclination

Four Easy Steps to Midline Inclination

Midline inclination isn't only noticed by dental professionals, anybody can notice an imperfect inclination even if it's as little as one millimeter...

| 11 years ago
Midlines: A Shifty Business

Midlines: A Shifty Business

Our experiences in reconstructive dentistry have taught us that there are many instances in which the midline is not perfectly straight or centered on...

| 11 years ago
Lip Service: How to Evaluate a Crooked Smile

Lip Service: How to Evaluate a Crooked Smile

A person's smile is a work of art. Think about it, the lips function as the frame and the teeth are the picture. As with actual pieces of art, we look...

| 11 years ago
Can Bonding Broken Tooth Fragments Really Work?
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Can Bonding Broken Tooth Fragments Really Work?

A 19-year-old patient named Tim presented with a crown fracture on his two central incisors. We decided to use the broken teeth fragments he brought with...

| 11 years ago
The Five Tenets of Esthetics
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The Five Tenets of Esthetics

In the last decade of the 20th century esthetics changed dentistry, and it continues to be a powerful force today. Esthetics is a branch of philosophy...

| 11 years ago