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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Dec 26, 2021; 9(36): 11276-11284
Published online Dec 26, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i36.11276
Influence of pontic design of anterior fixed dental prosthesis on speech: A clinical case study
Jia Wan, He Cai, Tong Wang, Jun-Yu Chen
Jia Wan, Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
He Cai, Tong Wang, Jun-Yu Chen, Department of Prosthodontics, State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China
Author contributions: Wan J and Cai H contributed equally to this work; Wan J and Cai H made a substantial contribution to study planning, data extraction, analysis, and interpretation, and drafting and revising of the manuscript; Wang T contributed to data interpretation, and drafting and revising of the manuscript; Cai H and Chen JY made a substantial contribution to conception of the study, study planning, acquisition and analysis of data, and drafting and revising of the manuscript; all authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81901060; the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Funded Project, No. 2018M640931; and the Science and Technology Key Research and Development Program of Sichuan Province, No. 2019YFS0142.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Sichuan University.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that no conflict of interest exists.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jun-Yu Chen, DDS, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Prosthodontics, State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, No. 14, Section 3, South Renmin Road, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China. junyuchen@scu.edu.cn
Received: May 4, 2021
Peer-review started: May 4, 2021
First decision: June 6, 2021
Revised: June 7, 2021
Accepted: November 15, 2021
Article in press: November 15, 2021
Published online: December 26, 2021
Processing time: 233 Days and 10 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The pontic design of fixed dental prostheses (FDPs) is strongly associated with the phonetic function, and the phonetic function of anterior FDPs with different pontic designs remains understudied.

AIM

To investigate the immediate and short-term influence of pontic design of anterior FDPs on Chinese speech in a clinical case using objective acoustic analysis.

METHODS

Two FDPs with two types of pontic design (saddle pontic and modified ridge lap pontic) were fabricated for one patient with maxillary anterior teeth missing. The acoustic analysis of patient’s articulation was conducted immediately after wearing the FDPs and 1 wk after wearing these FDPs.

RESULTS

The effect of FDP on Chinese vowels (/a/, /o/, /e/, /i/, /u/, and /ü/) was insignificant, because the recovery of vowel distortion occurred within 1 wk for both FDPs. Three (/f/, /s/, and /sh/) of eight Chinese fricative consonants were found to have obvious distortions, and the /s/ sound distortion last for more than 1 wk for the patient wearing FDP with modified ridge lap pontic design.

CONCLUSION

The influence of anterior FDP on articulation of Chinese vowels is insignificant, while the articulation of Chinese fricative consonants is more susceptible. When fabricating anterior FDPs for patients with speech related professions, saddle pontic design can be an alternative option compared with modified ridge lap pontic design.

Keywords: Fixed dental prostheses; Acoustic analysis; Phonetic function; Pontic design; Clinical case study

Core Tip: This is the first clinical case study to investigate the effect of two normal types of pontic design of anterior fixed dental prostheses (FDPs) on Chinese speech. Using objective acoustic analysis, we found that the effect of both FDPs on Chinese vowels was insignificant, while the /s/ sound distortion lasted for more than 1 wk for the patient wearing FDP with modified ridge lap pontic design. Therefore, when fabricating anterior FDPs for patients with speech related professions, saddle pontic design can be an alternative option compared with modified ridge lap pontic design.