The impact of the fabrication method on the three-dimensional accuracy of an implant surgery template

Purpose: The use of a surgical template is a well-established method in advanced implantology. In addition to conventional fabrication, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/ CAM) work-flow provides an opportunity to engineer implant drilling templates via a three-dimensional printer. In order to transfer the virtual planning to the oral situation, a highly accurate surgical guide is needed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the fabrication method on the three-dimensional accuracy. Materials and methods: The same virtual planning based on a scanned plaster model was used to fabricate a conventional thermo4ormed and a three-dimensional printed surgical guide for each of 13 patients (single tooth implants). Both templates were acquired individually on the respective plaster model using an optical industrial white-light scanner (ATOS II, GOM mbh, Braunschweig, Germany), and the virtual datasets were superimposed. Using the three-dimensional geometry of the implant sleeve, the deviation between both surgical guides was evaluated. Results: The mean discrepancy of the angle was 3.479 (standard deviation, 1.904) based on data from 13 patients. Concerning the three-dimensional position of the implant sleeve, the highest deviation was in the Z-axis at 0.594 mm. The mean deviation of the Euclidian distance, dxyz, was 0.864 mm. Conclusion: Although the two different fabrication methods delivered statistically significantly different templates, the deviations ranged within a decimillimeter span. Both methods are appropriate for clinical use. (C) 2017 European Association for Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.