The Use of Facebow in Complete Denture Construction: A Review

Introduction: The use of face bow (FB) has become an essential tool for professionals seeking to transfer patient information to the semi-adjustable articulator (SAA). However, its use for the fabrication of conventional complete dentures (CD) has come to be questioned.

Objective: This literature review aims to evaluate the need for FB in CD manufacturing, in relation to the precision and quality of the prosthesis.

Methodology: The survey for this study was carried out in the websites electronic databases: Medline, Scielo, Cochrane and Scopus. Articles published in the last 15 years, from january 2009 to january 2024 were included; Articles written in Portuguese and/or English; Controlled and/or randomized clinical trials; Articles that carried out comparisons of conventional complete dentures manufactured with or without the use of FB; Articles that evaluate the efficiency of the FB in different prosthetic procedures; Studies that did not evaluate the need for using FB in the manufacture of CD were excluded; Duplicate studies. 6 articles were selected to form this study.

Results and Discussion: No significant differences were found with the use of the FB, even in simplified methods for creating CD. Studies reported that the use of FB is indifferent to the quality of the prosthesis manufactured. Furthermore, not using the FB reduces treatment time and minimizes errors due to the reduction in the number of clinical steps.

Conclusions: It is concluded that there are no significant differences between CD fabricated with or without the use of FB, and that both techniques reported equally satisfactory results, however, more in-depth clinical and laboratory studies on the subject are needed to ensure greater scientific evidence on this topic.