Triple tray crown and bridge procedures: a guide to how dental assistants can assist the dentist: part 1.

The manual dual-arch (or triple tray) technique is an efficient way of making a definitive impression and making temporary provisional restorations for crown and bridge procedures. This article demonstrates how a dental assistant can assist a dentist during triple tray crown and bridge procedures. This is the first part of a two-part article, and explains mixing impression materials, making pre-operative dual-arch impressions, deciding in what situations to use separate arch impressions instead of the triple tray, and introduces the topic of making provisional restorations. In the future, in-office CAD-CAM scanning and milling of restorations, or digital scanning of tooth preparations, followed by e-mailing the scans to a dental laboratory, may reduce the frequency of use of the manual triple tray impression technique. However, its intrinsic efficiency may prevent it from becoming obsolete.