Advancements in digital technologies and workflows have led to a paradigm shift in dental medicine in the last decades. In the field of prosthodontics, a vast choice of digital tools influences diagnostics, treatment planning and the fabrication method of dental restorations and has an impact on their clinical long-term outcomes. Dental materials used for tooth- and implant-supported restorations shifted from the long-time gold standard of metal-ceramics to novel, all-ceramic materials with enhanced esthetics and material properties. For routine clinical application scientific evidence on the performance of these more recent options is needed.

The research presented in this thesis focused on two research lines. The first line of research aimed at investigating clinical long-term outcomes of all-ceramic tooth- and implantborne restorations fabricated with the aid of digital technologies and applying novel digital workflows. The clinical performance of all-ceramic materials was analyzed in one retrospective 11-year follow-up study and in one multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial. Ceramic fractures and chipping of the veneering ceramic turned out to be the most frequent complication in all-ceramic restorations. Furthermore, the conventional early implant placement protocol was compared to the more patient-oriented, time-efficient immediate implant placement protocol and the clinical outcomes of the inserted bone-level-tapered implants were analyzed. To further reduce technical complications as chipping and ceramic fractures, a novel veneering method is presented, and a clinical study was developed and is ongoing.

Dental materials have improved thanks to the development of digital technologies, and at the same time, the importance of personalized medicine is growing at a fast pace. The second research line focused on customizing soft tissue substitutes for volume augmentation after tooth loss. Research line two is closely linked to research line one by the introduced randomized controlled trial, in which the peri-implant volume was analyzed after immediate and early implant placement. The knowledge from this clinical study was transferred to design and fabricate a semi-customized graft, ideally adapted to the typical volume defect shape after a single tooth extraction. This is one further step in the direction of personalized oral medicine, where treatments will in the future be individually adapted to the patient’s needs by using the significant number of possibilities that the newest digital technologies can offer.

Finally, a future outlook is given, summarizing the latest advancements in digital technologies for prosthodontics and the areas of future research. The increasing importance of patient-centered medicine is particularly emphasized, laying one focus on patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for future research.