The evaluation of working casts prepared from digital impressions

The aim of this study is to evaluate the reproducibility of working casts of a digital impression system by comparing them with the original, virtual, and rapid prototyping casts.

A total of 54 cast sets in clinically stable occlusion were used. They were scanned by an iTero intraoral scanner and converted into STL format virtual casts. Rapid prototyping casts and polyurethane casts were fabricated from the iTero milling system based on the virtual casts. Several horizontal and vertical measurements were performed from the four types of casts, that is, original stone casts, virtual casts, rapid prototyping casts, and polyurethane casts of iTero. Measurement error, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), and differences among the casts were calculated and compared.

Casts from iTero milling machines exhibited greater dimensional differences and lower ICC values than did other casts. In addition, many of the measurements of the iTero working casts showed statistically significant differences in comparison to the three other types of casts. In contrast, there were no statistically significant differences between the virtual and original casts.

Virtual casts made by the iTero intraoral scanner exhibited excellent reproducibility. However, the casts from the iTero milling machine showed greater dimensional differences and lower reproducibility compared to other types of casts.