SURVEYING IN REMOVABLE

PARTIAL DENTURES

DR. SAMEEN ZEHRA

DEMONSTRATOR
DEPARTMENT OF
PROSTHODONTICS
HITEC-DENTAL COLLEGE
TAXILLA
 TERMINOLOGIES

▪ SURVEYING: An analysis and comparison of the prominence of intraoral contours associated

with the fabrication of dental prosthesis.

▪ SURVEYOR: An instrument used to determine the relative parallelism of two or more surfaces of
the teeth or other parts of cast of dental arch

▪ SURVEY: The procedure of locating or delineating the contour and position of the abutment teeth
and associated structures before designing a partial denture
 TERMINOLOGIES

▪ PATH OF INSERTION/ REMOVAL: The direction in which a prosthesis is placed upon and
removed from the abutment teeth

▪ HEIGHT OF CONTOUR: A line encircling a tooth designating its greatest circumference at a

selected position

SUPRA BULGE AREA: It is that portion of an abutment that converges towards the occlusal or
incisal surface

INFRABULGE AREA: It is that portion of the clinical crown that converges apically from the
height of contour and is considered as the infrabulge aspect of the abutment
🠶 GUIDING PLANES: Two or more vertically parallel surfaces of abutment teeth so
oriented as to direct the path of placement/removal of a removable partial denture
🠶 SURVEY LINES: Line drawn on the tooth or teeth of a cast by means of a surveyor for the
purpose of determining various parts of clasp or clasps

❑ Significance:

✔ Helps to locate areas of undesirable tooth undercuts that must be avoided or eliminated

✔ Any rigid or nonflexible part of prosthesis must be designed to lie above the survey line,
and only flexible parts may be designed to go below it
🠶 Blatterfein classified survey lines as:
✔ High survey line
✔ Medium survey line
✔ Low survey line
✔ Diagonal survey line
🠶 High survey line: Found near the occlusal surface of the tooth often parallel to the
gingival margin

🠶 Medium survey line: Situated across the center of the tooth

🠶 Low survey line: Situated close and parallel to gingival margin

🠶 Diagonal survey line: It travels diagonally from near the occlusal surface in the near zone
of gingiva in the far zone
HIGH MEDIUM LOW DIAGNOL
 TYPES OF SURVEYORS

NEY SURVEYOR JELENKO SURVEYOR

 PARTS OF SURVEYOR

🠶 Platform on which base is moved

🠶 Base on which table swivels
🠶 Table on which cast is attached
🠶 Vertical arm that supports the superstructure
🠶 Horizontal arm from which the surveying tools suspends
🠶 Paralleling tool or guideline marker
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Surveying Tools
🠶 Analyzing rod
🠶 Carbon markers
🠶 Undercut gauges
🠶 Wax trimmer
 OBJECTIVES OF SURVEYING
🠶 To determine the most suitable path of placement and removal that will eliminate or minimize interference

🠶 To identify the proximal tooth surfaces that are or need to be made parallel, so that they act as guiding plane

🠶 To locate and measure areas of teeth that may be used for retention

🠶 To determine whether teeth or bony areas of interferences will need to be eliminated surgically or selection of
different path of placement

🠶 To determine path of placement that will permit locating retainers and artificial teeth to provide best esthetic
advantage

🠶 To permit accurate charting of the mouth preparations to be made. This includes preparation of proximal tooth
surfaces to provide guide planes and reduction of excessive tooth contours to eliminate interferences.

🠶 To record the cast position in relation to selected path of placement for future
FACTORS AFFECTING PATH OF
INSERTION AND REMOVAL
🠶 GUIDE PLANES
🠶 RETENTIVE AREAS
🠶 INTERFERENCES
🠶 ESTHETICS
🠶 GUIDE PLANES: Proximal tooth surfaces that bear parallel relationship to one another
must be found or must be created to act as guide palnes

❑ Guide planes are necessary to ensure passage of rigid parts of prosthesis without strain
on teeth contacted or on the denture

❑ Guide planes are also necessary to ensure predictable clasp assembly function
including retention and stabilization.

Hence guide planes are necessary to give positive direction to the movement of
restoration to and from its terminal position
🠶 RETENTIVE AREAS: Retentive areas must exist for a given path of placement and must
be contacted by retentive clasp arms that are forced to flex over convex surface during
placement and removal.

❑ Retention should be sufficient only to resist reasonable dislodging forces.in other

words, it should be minimum acceptable for adequate retention against dislodging
forces
🠶 INTERFERENCE: The prosthesis must be designed so that it may be placed and
removed without encountering tooth or soft tissue interference.

❑ A path of placement may selected that encounters interference only if the interference
can be eliminated during mouth preparations or on the master cast by a reasonable
amount of block out

❑ Interferences can be eliminated during mouth preparation by surgery, extraction,

modification of interfering tooth surfaces or alteration of tooth contours with
restorations
🠶 ESTHETICS: The path of placement should permit the most esthetic location of artificial
teeth and less clasp metal and base material display

❑ Esthetics also may dictate the choice of path selected when missing anterior teeth
must be replaced with partial denture. In such situations, a more vertical path of
placement is often necessary so that neither the artificial teeth nor the adjacent natural
teeth will have to be modified excessively.
 TRIPODING

🠶 Tripoding is method of recording relationship of cast to the vertical arm of surveyor

🠶 Significance:

✔ cast will be returned to surveyor during mouth preparation in the same anteroposterior and lateral
orientation as determined previously during surveying

✔ Same applies for returning working cast to the surveyor for shaping wax patterns, trimming block out
on master cast or locating clasp arm in relation to undercut areas.
 METHODS OF TRIPODING
🠶 Of several methods, two seems to be most convenient and accurate
1. FIRST METHOD:

⮚ Three widely divergent dots on the tissue surface of the cast with the tip of carbon marker with the
vertical arm of the surveyor in locked position.

⮚ These dots should not be placed on areas of casts involved in framework design.

⮚ Dots should be encircled with colored pencil for easy identification

⮚ When the cast is returned to the surveyor, it may be tilted until the tip of surveyor blade or diagnostic
stylus again contact the three dots in the same plane
2. SECOND METHOD:

⮚ It includes scoring the two sides and the dorsal aspect of the base of cast with sharp instrument held
against the surveyor blade.

⮚ These scratch lines will be reproduced in duplication cast to be related to the surveyor in a similar
manner