Dental Bridges: Types and Clinical Applications

The clinical difference between traditional, cantilever and Maryland bridges, and the criteria that determine which type is indicated based on the location of the missing tooth and the availability of healthy abutment teeth.

The traditional bridge remains the most common form of fixed partial denture: it anchors to both teeth adjacent to the edentulous space, which are prepared and covered with crowns, offering maximum stability and strength thanks to double support. It's the go-to choice in posterior areas, where chewing forces are more intense and mechanical stability takes priority over particularly strict aesthetic considerations.

The cantilever bridge uses just one abutment tooth instead of two, and is reserved for specific clinical situations where only one suitable natural tooth is available on one side of the edentulous area. Precisely because of this asymmetric configuration, the chewing load concentrates entirely on a single abutment, which makes it a solution typically reserved for anterior areas, where the forces involved during chewing are significantly lower than in posterior areas, reducing the risk of mechanical overload on the abutment tooth.

The Maryland bridge (or resin-bonded bridge) is the least invasive of the three options: instead of full crowns on the abutment teeth, it uses a thin framework — metal or ceramic — adhesively cemented to the back surface of adjacent teeth, requiring little to no filing of those teeth. This feature makes it particularly suited to replacing single anterior teeth in young patients, often as a bridge solution while awaiting a definitive implant once bone growth is complete, or as a permanent option when fully preserving the abutment teeth is an explicit clinical priority.

The choice between the three types depends not only on the anatomical location of the missing tooth, but also on the quality of the available abutment teeth: an abutment tooth already extensively restored or root-canal treated is better suited to full-crown preparation (traditional or cantilever bridge), while an intact, healthy abutment tooth makes the less invasive Maryland bridge approach preferable, when clinical conditions allow, to avoid sacrificing healthy tooth structure just to create an anchor.

On Oralzon you'll find all the materials for building dental bridges of every type: metal alloys for Maryland bridge wings, zirconia and lithium disilicate blocks for traditional and cantilever bridges, and the specific adhesive cements for each configuration.