My dentist advised me to have a lower partial denture with a cast metal base made. Until now I have had an ordinary acrylic partial denture. Is the recommended denture really better?

A denture with a cast metal base is much more rigid than an ordinary acrylic denture, which means that under load it does not yield to the forces acting on it. Specially shaped retention elements, namely clasps and rests, attach the denture to the abutment teeth in such a way that the latter are loaded along their vertical axis. The rigidity of the denture and the design of the retention elements ensure that loading during function does not cause mobility and loss of the patient's own teeth, which certainly cannot be said of an ordinary acrylic denture. Dental doctrine regards an acrylic denture only as a temporary removable prosthetic replacement. Because cast clasps have much better elastic properties than the spring wire used to form clasps on an acrylic denture, attachment of such a denture to the abutment teeth is much better. Because of the strong metal construction, the denture is resistant to fracture even with very small dimensions of its elements, so the final prosthesis can be much more delicate and bothers patients less during function. Since a larger proportion of the biting forces is transferred to the abutment teeth, the supporting mucosa and the underlying bone are loaded less, which means that the jawbone will resorb more slowly, provide a suitable anatomical foundation for the denture for a longer time and thus replace the patient's lost natural teeth more effectively.