At TQM, ideas are always bubbling, and we constantly look to the future — toward improved techniques, patient satisfaction, ease of use, and reintervention for the clinician.
This is how the Screw Retained Hybrid system was born: a bar-counterbar solution that doesn’t rely on cement to hold the two parts together, but screws them together instead.

The solution is simple yet effective: threaded holes are milled into the bar, while titanium sleeves are cemented into the anatomical structure. This allows the two parts to be joined by screwing them together, rather than bonding them with cement.

The sleeves dissipate the screwing force both downward and laterally, protecting aesthetic materials more prone to fractures, such as zirconia. They can also be cut according to preference: either left exposed at the occlusal plane or hidden deeper inside.

Advantages:

• Removability: the coupling screws have a 1.2 hex compatible with the most common screwdrivers in the dental market. The prosthesis can always be easily unscrewed and disassembled, providing access for hygiene and maintenance.

• Better positioning of screw channel holes: place the sleeves wherever you want — not where the implants dictate. You can position the secondary screw holes right at the center of the molar occlusal plane, lingually to the incisors, buccally to the second molars…

• No need for angled channels: the screw channels that secure the bar to the fixtures no longer emerge on the surface but are hidden under the anatomical counterbar. Therefore, there’s no need to correct their emergence axis — they can remain straight channels.

• Immediate loading and delayed definitive restoration: do you want to deliver a case with an initial PMMA anatomy, later to be replaced by another in zirconia or composite?
  If cement is used, the prosthesis must be removed from the oral cavity, taken to the lab, the PMMA detached (likely breaking it), and the definitive anatomy cemented… and meanwhile, the patient is left edentulous.
  With this solution, however, the definitive anatomy can be prepared in advance, matching the sleeves to the holes on the bar. So, the replacement in the clinic is a matter of one minute: unscrew the PMMA, screw in the composite or zirconia.
• Bonus: the PMMA remains intact and can be stored for future needs, such as an emergency prosthesis or backup.