In vitro evaluation of the accuracy and precision of intraoral and extraoral scans

Statement of problem. The accuracy of intraoral and extraoral scanners for different models of edentulousness is unclear. Purpose. The purpose of this in vitro evaluation was to determine the accuracy (trueness and precision) of complete-arch scans made by 3 intraoral and 1 extraoral scanners compared with an industrial 3D scanner. Material and methods. Digital scans were made of a reference cast with 3 intraoral scanners (CEREC Omnicam; Dentsply Sirona, TRIOS 3; 3shape A/S; Carestream CS 3600; Carestream Dental) and an extraoral scanner (Deluxe scanner; Open Technologies). A dental maxilla model was used for tooth preparation for ceramic restorations with a shoulder finishing line. Maxillary right central and lateral incisors and third molar and maxillary left second premolar and first and third molar teeth were removed. One operator scanned the reference cast 10 times with each scanner. All the recorded standard tessellation language (STL) files were imported into an inspection software program and individually overlaid on the STL file for the reference model made by the 3D scanner. The measured distance between the distal point of the maxillary left second molar tooth and the mesial point of the maxillary left first premolar was defined as distance 1; distance 2 was defined as the distance between the mesial point of the maxillary second molar tooth and the distal point of the maxillary right first premolar tooth. The Levene test for homoscedasticity of variances was used to evaluate precision, and a 2-way repeated-measures ANOVA and Bonferroni-corrected Student t tests were used to evaluate trueness (alpha=.05). Results. A statistically significant difference was found between the Carestream scanner and the other scanners when scanning both mucosa and teeth. The Carestream scanner had the lowest accuracy and highest magnitude mean deviation of all the scanners. Conclusions. Obtaining an accurate partial-arch impression is still challenging for some intraoral scanners. The Carestream scanner's trueness was outside the acceptable range. However, other scanners tested here appeared to be suitable alternatives to conventional impression techniques.