Sebastian B.M. Patzelt DMD, Dr med dent¹,²,⁸⁹, Christos Lamprinos DDS², Susanne Stampf Dr rer nat³, Wael Att DDS, Dr med dent habil, PhD⁴
Methods
The authors used three different intraoral scanners to digitize a single abutment (scenario 1), a short-span fixed dental prosthesis (scenario 2) and a full-arch prosthesis preparation (scenario 3). They measured the procedure durations for the several scenarios and compiled and contrasted the procedure durations for three conventional impression materials.
Measurement Details
Time was measured from the initial setup (tray selection or hardware setup) through the final step before shipping (disinfection for conventional, file finalization for digital).
Results[^10]
- Key Finding: Digital impressions were significantly faster than conventional methods.
- Mean digital impression times were up to 5:57 for single abutments, 6:57 for short spans, and 20:55 for full arches.
- Conventional impression times ranged from 18:15 to 30:25 across the scenarios.
- There were statistically significant differences between all scanners (P < .05), except Lava and iTero for scenario 1, CEREC and CEREC with foot pedal for scenario 2, and iTero and iTero with foot pedal for scenarios 2 and 3.