Maryland Bridge

What is a Maryland Bridge?

In recent years, with the development of adhesive agents and the concept of protection in dentistry, treatments with minimal tooth tissue loss have come to the fore. Therefore, today, especially in the treatment of short toothless gaps, bridges prepared without abrasion of adjacent teeth are called ‘Maryland Bridges’ or ‘Winged Bridges’.

In What Situations Are Maryland Bridges Applied?

We prefer Maryland bridges for tooth deficiencies in the frontal areas. They are used as temporary bridges prepared without damaging the teeth, especially during the bone fusion period after implant applications, and as a protective fixed prosthesis in cases that are not suitable for implant application.

How Are Maryland Bridges Implemented?

In some cases, we can prepare temporary Maryland bridges directly in the mouth by using fiber supports.

However, we generally complete our treatment by taking measurements, producing them from various materials such as metal-supported porcelain, zirconium, glass ceramic in technician laboratories, and bonding them to the teeth without causing any abrasion on the teeth.

What are our aims in treatment with Maryland Bridge Applications?

We aim to solve tooth loss temporarily or permanently by using only bonding agents without any abrasion on the teeth.

The question of why such a protective application is not always applied may come to mind. The most important advantage of Maryland bridges is that they do not cause material loss in the teeth. However, since their retention is not as strong as other bridge treatments, their resistance is insufficient, especially in areas where chewing force is intense. For this reason, it is a type of prosthesis that is generally preferred in the treatment of short edentulous areas.

How Should Maryland Bridges Be Maintained?

Just like our normal teeth, we need to brush the areas where our dentures are after every meal in the same way. Since the attachment areas of Maryland bridges will not allow the passage of traditional dental floss, special dental floss and mouthwashes should be used to clean the area under the bridges in the edentulous area. We need to be careful not to break hard-shelled nuts such as walnuts and hazelnuts, which can also damage our real teeth, with our dentures.