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06 I I opinion _ implant therapy CAD/CAM 1_2011 Fig. 1_3-D-scan of GALILEOS with imported CEREC crown. Fig. 2_SICAT surgery guide. Fig. 3_Inserted ZrO2 abutments. _Cone-beamcomputerisedtomography(CBCT) systems number amongst the most advanced imag- ingdevicesthatarecurrentlyavailableonthemarket. The insight into the third dimension simplifies diag- nostic procedures, enhances treatment safety and reduces radiation doses for patients. In addition, there are convincing forensic arguments in favour of CBCT. With the aid of 3-D CBCT images, users can interprettheclinicalsituationwithmuchgreaterac- curacy.Theycanevaluatetheoptimumdrillingangles for various perspectives (saggital, coronal, axial) and generate transversal slices and panoramic images. Compared with conventional CTs, CBCT systems are less sensitive to metal artefacts. Thanks to the availability of 3-D imaging, dentists are in a better position to assess the risks of treating certain cases in-house. In addition, CBCT users can create digital networks with their colleagues and advertise their services to referring dentists. An important reason for purchasing a CBCT sys- tem is the time and effort involved in referring pa- tients to external radiologists, both for the patient andthedentist.Insomecases,patientsdonotreturn after being referred. In addition, the diagnostic re- sults are sometimes delayed and the reports are not directly assigned to the X-ray images. Referrals to external radiologists tend to disrupt the patient counselling process. Experience has shown that pa- tients rate the expertise of a dental practice more highly when all services come from a single source and when the dentist is directly involved in the diag- nosis of the X-rays. The higher costs of a CBCT image compared with a conventional panoramic X-ray can easily be justified by the clear diagnostic and thera- peuticbenefits.AconvincingargumentisthataCBCT contains300MBofinformation,comparedwithonly 5 MB in the case of a digital panoramic X-ray. Implant planning using GALILEOS and CEREC reducesthenumberofappointments.Lesslaboratory work is required. In most cases, it is not necessary to produce waxed-up prosthetic reconstructions. The combinationofdigitalimagingandCADgeneratesall the necessary information for the dental laboratory, thus ensuring transparent working procedures. The decisive factor is that the integration of GALILEOS and CEREC streamlines the dentist’s workflow and leads to reliable clinical results. _Enhanced clinical reliability… A very useful feature of the GALILEOS system is the built-in implant database, which contains the dimensional data of various commonly used endos- seous posts (Astra, Straumann, BIOMET 3i, Bicon, BioHorizonsandZ-Look).BycombiningtheGALILEOS image, the clinical CEREC scan and the virtual su- perstructure design, the user can dispense with a prostheticwax-upmodel(Fig.1).Instead,atemplate is used that is easily fixated in the patient’s mouth (Fig. 2). The prosthetic planning is carried out fully Safety-first implant therapy Authors_ Dr Neal S. Patel & Dr Jay B. Reznick, USA Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3