Mike Skramstad When restoring an implant with a "Split" technique or Hybrid Abutment Crown, you must be aware of two critical things:
• Depth of implant in relation to the tissue
• Split line position
If you make the assumption that you are going to split the restoration into a hybrid abutment and a crown at the level of the tissue, the distance between the level of the split line and the implant becomes important. This is the amount of room you have to develop the emergence profile on your abutment. The larger this distance is (seen on the left image), the better chance you will have that the sprue for that abutment will be below the split line.
This is important to know because the sprue for abutments can often be a bit larger than typical crowns. If we know that it’s very likely the sprue will be below the split line, we can feel confident that the final abutment crown will fit excellent over the top. In instances in which the distance between the implant and gingival crest is very small, the sprue for the abutment is likely to be on the margin and/or above the split line. These instances are a bit more difficult to account for and have a perfect fitting restoration. In these cases, I will often take implant level impressions just in case I need to re-scan the crown for the final abutment.
The most important part is to recognize this landmark and distance, so you can be prepared to restore it in any way necessary without having the patient back.
