On the clinical deformation of maxillary complete dentures. Influence of the processing techniques of acrylate-based polymers.

This paper aims to study the functional deformation patterns of complete maxillary dentures constructed in three different types of denture base materials and with two techniques of processing of dentures. The patients' evaluation of the fit of the dentures was also recorded. Thirty strain-gauged duplicate dentures were made for this study of five test subjects. The functional loading tests included maximum biting and the chewing of three food test samples. The results showed that there was no correlation between the patients' evaluation and acceptance of the fit of the dentures and the actual straining magnitudes and deformation of their dentures. The results also suggest that dentures manufactured from toughened or co-polymerized poly(methyl methacrylate) and processed by the injection molding technique deform to a lesser extent than when processed by by the compression molding technique. Standard poly(methyl methacrylate) seems to be less sensitive to the processing technique.