What is an implant supported denture?

For general dentists and prosthodontists, the clinical distinction between implant designs matters at the treatment-planning stage. A locator-retained overdenture typically uses 2 implants in the mandible or 4 in the maxilla. The patient snaps the denture onto the attachments and removes it for cleaning. Bone support still depends partly on the ridge, so acrylic base fit and occlusal balance remain critical lab variables. A poorly adapted base transfers stress unevenly to the implants over time.

Screw-retained fixed arches, which include the All-on-4 and All-on-X frameworks, are non-removable by the patient and rely entirely on the implants for support and retention. These prosthetics are fabricated over a titanium or zirconia framework milled from CBCT and intraoral scan data. The lab workflow is longer, typically 5-10 business days for the final prosthetic depending on material selection, and requires accurate implant-level impressions or digital scan bodies to guarantee passive fit at delivery.

For DSOs managing implant volume across multiple offices, having one lab handle both overdenture and fixed-arch cases under a single workflow reduces the coordination failures that appear when two vendors share a case. Dani Dental fabricates both prosthetic types in-house, so the restorative and surgical components move through one accountable pipeline.