No-Prep vs. Minimal-Prep Veneers

Hello, I'm Park Jonguk, director of Dream Dental Clinic.

Something we always deliberate over when doing veneers

is how much tooth structure to reduce.

Of course, it would be best if veneers could always be done without any reduction,

but cases suitable for no-prep veneers are quite limited.

Many patients come in hoping for a no-prep approach,

but only around 10% of cases actually qualify.

There are three absolute conditions that make it possible.

The teeth must be small.

The alignment must be good.

The teeth must not be protruding.

But even when all three conditions are met,

there's no point if the result doesn't look beautiful.

Even when a case meets all three conditions,

there are quite a few cases that still make us deliberate over whether to reduce the tooth or not.

In such cases, through a wax-up,

it's important to have a detailed consultation with the patient about the best way to proceed.

The patient wanted to improve the shape and color of her teeth

and also correct black triangles, so we decided on veneer treatment,

and as I mentioned earlier,

her teeth were small, her alignment was good, and there was no protrusion at all.

In theory, this was a situation where no-prep veneers were possible.

The problem was that while the teeth were small, they were also too short and too wide.

Because of an occlusal issue, it was difficult to lengthen the teeth.

So in a case like this, if veneers were done without any reduction,

the teeth would end up looking too short and stretched wide instead.

In cases like this, where the aesthetic improvement of the result matters most,

we perform a precision wax-up diagnosis using two approaches.

First, what it would look like with no reduction at all,

and second, what it would look like with a slight micro-reduction to reduce the tooth size a little.

We carried out an analysis of the teeth.

You can see that the two front teeth were different sizes.

And you can also see that the length-to-width ratio of the teeth wasn't favorable.

The teeth weren't protruding — if anything, they were inward-tilted,

which is good for a no-prep approach, but...

if the veneer ended up too wide from side to side,

the aesthetic improvement would be too limited.

First, here's the simulation with no-prep veneers.

There was a clear limit to how much the tooth proportion could improve,

and since the teeth would become larger than they are now,

the aesthetic result wouldn't look good either.

Here's the case with a micro-reduction.

The tooth size stays about the same,

but it can be designed to look smaller,

and since the tooth's width-to-length ratio moves closer to average,

you can see it looks noticeably better.

We proceed while also estimating how much reduction will be needed.

Since it's only a micro-reduction,

you can see that even a barely perceptible amount of reduction makes a big aesthetic difference.

The patient was concerned about her teeth becoming too large,

and since the amount of reduction was minimal,

she decided to go with a micro-reduction before the veneers.

This is after the micro-reduction was performed.

Only the necessary areas were minutely reduced, and an impression was taken for the veneers.

We normally use temporary veneers to consult on shape,

but since the amount of reduction was so small, even without temporary veneers

there's no problem at all in daily life.

Once the veneers were finished, we placed them one side at a time.

The veneer is larger,

but with an improved proportion and enhanced dimensionality,

the tooth doesn't visually look much bigger,

and while the length increased,

the width actually feels like it decreased.

This is because the design elements that make a tooth look smaller were combined appropriately.

The veneers are complete.

The color and shape of the teeth look very natural,

and the result finished beautifully.

Each individual tooth has a good balance of translucency and brightness,

and the gums also remain in a very healthy state.

With only a minute amount of reduction,

natural, beautiful veneers were completed.

Since 2006, Dream Dental Clinic