Influence of Scanner Precision and Analysis Software in Quantifying Three-Dimensional Intraoral Changes: Two-Factor...

Area of Science:

• Dental diagnostics
• Biomedical engineering
• Digital dentistry

Background:

• Three-dimensional (3D) scanning is crucial for quantifying topographical changes and clinical outcomes.
• High costs and complex software traditionally limited 3D scan use to specialized centers.
• Advancements offer accessible 3D data capture and analysis for dental primary care, enabling disease progression quantification.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare a dental primary care intraoral scanner method with a hospital-based laser profilometer method.
• To evaluate the performance of open-source versus commercial data analysis software.

Main Methods:

• Longitudinal dental wear data from 30 patients were analyzed.
• Intraoral scans and silicone impressions were compared to laser profilometry scans.
• Data were analyzed using Geomagic Control (commercial) and WearCompare (freeware) software.

Main Results:

• Software significantly influenced volume change measurements (P<.001 for Geomagic, P=.04 for WearCompare).
• WearCompare detected greater volume loss than Geomagic, irrespective of scanner type.
• No significant differences were found in maximum point loss or average profile loss.

Conclusions:

• Data capture method, software, and metric significantly affect measurement outcomes.
• The primary care system effectively quantifies changes when appropriate analysis is employed.
• Lower-resolution scanners may underestimate micron-level complex changes; selection depends on diagnostic accuracy needs.