Crown lengthening is a small surgical procedure performed to expose a greater amount of tooth structure for the purpose of subsequently restoring the tooth prosthetically.

This is done by incising the gingival tissue around a tooth and, after temporarily displacing the soft tissue, predictably removing a given height of alveolar bone from the circumference of the tooth or teeth being operated on Crown lengthening is often done in conjunction with other procedures, orthodontically and/or endodontically, combined goal of which is to improve the prosthetic forecast of a tooth.

The tooth is extruded orthodontically a couple of millimeters with simple bracketing of adjacent teeth and using light forces.