Trueness and fitting accuracy of maxillary 3D printed complete dentures

Abstract

Purpose: The trueness and fitting accuracy of complete dentures (CDs) manufactured digitally from wax dentures have not been investigated yet. This study evaluated the trueness and fitting accuracy of maxillary CDs manufactured using computer-aided design technology. Methods: CD bases were manufactured from fully edentulous maxillary casts using a milling machine and three three-dimensional (3D) printers (two stereolithography apparatus (SLA) and one digital light processing (DLP)). 3D printing was performed using an SLA printer with eight build support angles (0° to 315°). As a control, a CD base was conventionally fabricated using a heat-polymerized PMMA resin. After the tissue surfaces of the casts and the cameo surfaces of all the CD bases were scanned, their STL data were superimposed with a best-fit alignment. The deviations of all the CD bases were evaluated using data-matching software. Results: The milled CD bases showed higher trueness and fitting accuracy compared with the 3D-printed and conventional bases. SLA showed a higher fitting accuracy than DLP. The best support angles for the fitting accuracy were 45° and 225°. The fitting accuracy of the SLA 3D-printed CD bases with an angle of 45° was comparable to or slightly higher than that of conventionally fabricated bases. Conclusions: The milled CD bases showed an excellent fitting accuracy. The SLA-printed CDs demonstrated a clinically acceptable fitting accuracy.

Effect of support structures on the trueness and precision of 3D printing dentures: An <i>in vitro</i> study

“…Furthermore, as the light from the SLA printer penetrates the resin monomer to a certain depth, the light source intensity is defined by the type and color of the resin material, which affects accuracy [13]. Previous comparative studies have investigated the accuracy of relatively highly accurate denture bases fabricated using different resin materials and printing protocols [9,11,16,17,[19][20][21]. The contradictory results of these studies and the present study may be attributed to the use of the printer, resin material, denture design, orientation, layer thickness, post-polymerization, and support structure configurations.…”

“…In dentistry, the application of such procedures in production processes is an exciting avenue [6]. Various factors can influence the denture accuracy during the AM printing process, including the type of AM technology and manufacturer [7][8][9][10][11], type of material, layer thickness [7,[11][12][13][14], depth of cure [7,12,15], build orientation (build direction and angle) [9,11,[16][17][18][19], platform position [16], post-processing procedure [7,15,16,20,21], and amount and configuration of the support structures [16,21,22]. Stereolithography (SLA) is an AM technique that selectively cures liquid photopolymers in vats via light-activated polymerization [23].…”

Evaluation of Retention for Maxillary Complete Denture Constructed by Conventional and 3D Printing Techniques

“…Recent studies evaluated denture bases manufactured by CAD/CAM and conventional techniques, these studies used surface matching software focused on accuracy of the denture base. The findings revealed that higher deformation was in the conventionally made dentures, whilst less deformation was associated with rapid prototyped dentures (11,(18)(19)(20) .…”

A review on clinical use of CAD/CAM and 3D printed dentures

“…30,31 Yoshidomea studied the trueness and fitting accuracy in conventional dentures, CAD/CAM dentures and two systems of 3D printed dentures (stereolithography and digital light processing). 32 He concluded that the milled dentures showed better trueness and fitting accuracy compared with 3D printed and conventional dentures. Moreover, 3D printed dentures showed similar trueness and fitting to conventional dentures.…”