Crown Taper Angles Achieved by Dental Students: A Systematic Review

Area of Science:

• Dental Education
• Prosthodontics
• Restorative Dentistry

Background:

• Accurate taper angles are essential for successful full crown preparations.
• Assessing the proficiency of dental students in achieving correct taper angles is vital for clinical competency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review existing literature on clinical taper angles achieved by dental students during crown preparation.
• To identify theoretical and clinically acceptable taper angle values reported in research.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search of major databases (Medline, Embase, Web of Knowledge, Cochrane Library) and key dental journals.
• Inclusion criteria focused on in vivo studies of full crown preparations by dental students, published in English.
• Data extraction included study characteristics, measurement methods, and achieved taper angles from 12 selected articles.

Main Results:

• A total of 2,306 preparations from 12 studies (1978-2014) were analyzed.
• Dental students consistently failed to achieve ideal convergence angles (4°-14°).
• Students' preparations yielded clinically acceptable taper angles, generally ranging from 10° to 20°.

Conclusions:

• The findings highlight a discrepancy between ideal and clinically acceptable taper angles in student preparations.
• These results should inform the evaluation and training strategies for dental students in crown preparation.
• Further research may be needed to refine training protocols for achieving optimal taper angles.