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Updated: Mar 14, 2026
Measuring the Complete-arch Distortion of an Optical Dental Impression
Published on: May 30, 2019
Quality of Impressions and Work Authorizations Submitted by Dental Students Supervised by Prosthodontists and General
Terence A Imbery1, Nicholas Diaz2, Kristy Greenfield2
1Dr. Imbery is Associate Professor, Department of General Practice, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry; Dr. Diaz is a Resident, General Practice Residency Program, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital; Dr. Greenfield is a Resident, Advanced Education in General Dentistry Program, Medical University of South Carolina; Dr. Janus is Professor, Department of Prosthodontics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry; and Dr. Best is Professor, Department of Periodontics, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry. taimbery@vcu.edu.
Abstract:
Preclinical fixed prosthodontics is taught by Department of Prosthodontics faculty members at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry; however, 86% of all clinical cases in academic year 2012 were staffed by faculty members from the Department of General Practice. The aims of this retrospective study were to quantify the quality of impressions, accuracy of laboratory work authorizations, and most common errors and to determine if there were differences between the rate of errors in cases supervised by the prosthodontists and the general dentists. A total of 346 Fixed Prosthodontic Laboratory Tracking Sheets for the 2012 academic year were reviewed. The results showed that, overall, 73% of submitted impressions were acceptable at initial evaluation, 16% had to be poured first and re-evaluated for quality prior to pindexing, 7% had multiple impressions submitted for transfer dies, and 4% were rejected for poor quality. There were higher acceptance rates for impressions and work authorizations for cases staffed by prosthodontists than by general dentists, but the differences were not statistically significant (p=0.0584 and p=0.0666, respectively). Regarding the work authorizations, 43% overall did not provide sufficient information or had technical errors that delayed prosthesis fabrication. The most common errors were incorrect mountings, absence of solid casts, inadequate description of margins for porcelain fused to metal crowns, inaccurate die trimming, and margin marking. The percentages of errors in cases supervised by general dentists and prosthodontists were similar for 17 of the 18 types of errors identified; only for margin description was the percentage of errors statistically significantly higher for general dentist-supervised than prosthodontist-supervised cases. These results highlighted the ongoing need for faculty development and calibration to ensure students receive the highest quality education from all faculty members teaching fixed prosthodontics.
