Evaluation of Two 3D Printers for Guided Implant Surgery

Purpose: To compare the suitability of a fused filament fabrication (FFF) consumer 3D printer with a professional digital light processing (DLP) printer for the production of surgical templates for guided oral implant surgery. Materials and Methods: Eight virtual templates were printed with two different 3D printers. These were optically scanned and the incongruences between virtual and printed templates were determined after alignment of the surface scans and the virtual data. Minimum, maximum, and mean incongruences were determined, and a t test between both groups was performed to determine statistically significant differences in accuracy. Results: Templates printed with the professional DLP printer showed statistically significantly less incongruence (P = .001) than those fabricated by the consumer FFF 3D printer. Conclusion: The accuracy of manufactured templates is strongly dependent on the printing device and method. At this time, the tested consumer 3D FFF printer is not suitable for the fabrication of templates for implant guided surgery. Minimum requirements regarding printers' features and 3D-printed templates need to be assessed in future studies. Keywords: accuracy, additive manufacturing, guided surgery, oral implantology, 3D printing