A dental diagnostic wax-up is a planning procedure used by your restorative dentist or oral surgeon to help communicate valuable information to the patient, laboratory, or other dental specialists.
The procedure typically involves taking a set of dental impressions of your teeth, creating dental casts (stone replicas of your teeth) and then modifying the shape, size, contour or entire location and position of your teeth, in model form prior to beginning your final dental restoration.
Another important role of the diagnostic wax-up is in the fabrication of the provisional restorations or temporaries. In the mouth, the temporaries can be contoured and customized to the patient’s facial features and used to communicate the proper size, shape, length, and form to the lab.
Communication between the laboratory ceramist and the dentist has always been the key to obtaining superior results in both aesthetic and functional aspects of restorative dentistry.