For this patient, I replaced his lower right missing bicuspid tooth with a porcelain fused to metal bridge. Normally we would place an implant, however, in this case his mandibular bone was very thin in this area, and the distal tooth was very badly decayed and needed to have a crown. So I recommended a bridge to replace the missing tooth.
This next patient was missing a lower molar and the adjacent teeth were badly broken down. We elected to try to save the remaining teeth and made a porcelain fused to metal bridge to replace the missing molar and restore the adjacent posterior teeth. The other option would have been to extract the 3 broken down teeth and place dental implants to restore the lower left quadrant. Here’s the before picture showing the broken down teeth, and after with the bridge cemented in place.