Precision of Dental Implant Digitization Using Intraoral Scanners

Purpose: The digitization of scanbodies on dental implants is required to use computer-aided design/computer-assisted manufacture processes for implant prosthetics. Little is known about the accuracy of scanbody digitization with intraoral scanners and dental lab scanners. This study aimed to examine the precision of different intraoral digital impression systems as well as a dental lab scanner using commercially available implant scanbodies. Materials and Methods: Two study models with a different number and distribution of dental implant scanbodies were produced from conventional implant impressions. The study models were scanned using three different intraoral scanners (iTero, Cadent; Trios, 3Shape; and True Definition, 3M ESPE) and a dental lab scanner (D250, 3Shape). For each study model, 10 scans were performed per scanner to produce repeated measurements for the calculation of precision. The distance and angulation between the respective scanbodies were measured. The results of each scanning system were compared using analysis of variance, and post hoc Tukey test was conducted for a pairwise comparison of scanning devices. Results: The precision values of the scanbodies varied according to the distance between the scanbodies and the scanning device. A distance of a single tooth space and a jaw-traversing distance between scanbodies produced significantly different results for distance and angle measurements between the scanning systems (P .05). Conclusion: The precision of intraoral scanners and the dental lab scanner was significantly different. The precision of intraoral scanners decreased with an increasing distance between the scanbodies, whereas the precision of the dental lab scanner was independent of the distance between the scanbodies.