Development and virtual validation of a novel digital workflow to rehabilitate palatal defects by using smartphone-integrated stereophotogrammetry (SPINS)

Abstract

Palatal defects are rehabilitated by fabricating maxillofacial prostheses called obturators. The treatment incorporates taking deviously unpredictable impressions to facsimile the palatal defects into plaster casts for obturator fabrication in the dental laboratory. The casts are then digitally stored using expensive hardware to prevent physical damage or data loss and, when required, future obturators are digitally designed, and 3D printed. Our objective was to construct and validate an economic in-house smartphone-integrated stereophotogrammetry (SPINS) 3D scanner and to evaluate its accuracy in designing prosthetics using open source/free (OS/F) digital pipeline. Palatal defect models were scanned using SPINS and its accuracy was compared against the standard laser scanner for virtual area and volumetric parameters. SPINS derived 3D models were then used to design obturators by using (OS/F) software. The resultant obturators were virtually compared against standard medical software designs. There were no significant differences in any of the virtual parameters when evaluating the accuracy of both SPINS, as well as OS/F derived obturators. However, limitations in the design process resulted in minimal dissimilarities. With further improvements, SPINS based prosthetic rehabilitation could create a viable, low cost method for rural and developing health services to embrace maxillofacial record keeping and digitised prosthetic rehabilitation.

A Simple Way to Reduce 3D Model Deformation in Smartphone Photogrammetry

“…The second most popular field is medical applications. Solutions that allow recreating the shape and size of individual parts of the body [ 45 , 46 , 47 , 57 , 58 ] and models for the needs of, e.g., prostheses or plastic surgeries [ 48 , 49 , 51 , 63 ] are predominant here. In the case of geological issues, the analysis of rock porosity and roughness is a common topic [ 65 , 66 ], while in geomorphology it is popular to create digital models of various types of geomorphological forms (e.g., cliffs, caves) [ 70 , 71 ].…”

Computer-aided design and 3-dimensional artificial/convolutional neural network for digital partial dental crown synthesis and validation

“…Inlays for medical grade commercial software were designed following the ‘surface construction’ principles (Fig. 1 ), as documented in a previous literature 11 , 35 . The inlay design for free software (Supplementary Fig.…”

“…Reinforcing their proposed advantages, it has been established that gold and ceramic onlay preparations resulted in significantly less coronal tooth structure reduction compared with their full-coverage equivalents on the same tooth when performed by undergraduate students 8 , 9 . While commercially available digital solutions provided CAD assistance to dentists for digital inlay and onlay preparations, most free or open-source implementation were documented for dentures and larger prostheses as opposed to PDC 10 , 11 . Furthermore, the literature suggested that both the desktop laser scanners and intraoral scanners were accurate devices in their own rights and carried out specific features effectively 12 – 14 .…”

Visual Diagnostics of Dental Caries through Deep Learning of Non-Standardised Photographs Using a Hybrid YOLO Ensemble and Transfer Learning Model

“…The use of mobile handheld devices, such as smartphones, has seen exponential growth in emerging economies, as smartphone ownership and network connectivity has substantially increased within the rural population [ 3 ]. As such, recent biomedical research has begun utilising the full functionalities of the sensors in the said devices, to provide affordable solutions to complex problems in remote dental healthcare [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ].…”