The Munich splint – more than ‘just’ function?

Initial therapy with occlusal splints (splints) is a key stage of complex prosthetic rehabilitation due to changes in the vertical dimension of occlusion. Good patient compliance is crucial to the success of treatment. In addition to the desire for minimally invasive treatments, patients have increasingly demanding expectations regarding esthetic and functional outcomes, even in the provisional stages of treatment, which are inadequately met by traditional splints. This requires a shift in thinking in routine clinical practice. If irreversible treatments are required, sufficient initial functional and esthetic testing is needed to increase their predictability. The advent of new dental materials and digital technologies has led to the development of new treatment concepts for prosthetic dentistry. This article presents a case example illustrating dental applications for polycarbonate as a ‘new’ splint fabrication material. The special material properties of polycarbonate enable the manufacture of fully anatomical, tooth-colored splints that closely simulate the final prosthetic restoration. The Munich splint concept takes functional, phonetic, esthetic, and minimal invasiveness expectations into account and is therefore an innovative and flexible pretreatment strategy.