On design, fabrication, and pre-clinical validation of customized 3D-printed dental implant assembly

In the past few decades, 3D-printed dental implants have been manufactured, and significant studies have demonstrated the pre-clinical validation of such systems. However, studies have yet to tackle the ever-present issue of preventing the jumping gap to enhance overall outcomes. The present study details the utilization of patient computed tomography (CT) data to design and subsequently fabricate a multi-component customized dental implant assembly and customized instruments using direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) technology. The workflow was validated for two patient data sets (cases 1 and 2), which were used to render and print custom implant assemblies; the simulation data for these were compared with a commercially available solution. The present study incorporated a prototype stage as well as subjecting the customized implant assemblies to both static (Case 1: 38.89-77.81 MPa vs 75.47-158.09 MPa; Case 2: 83.95-106.65 MPa vs 55.23-126.57 MPa) and dynamic finite element analysis (Case 1: 41.08-84.09 MPa vs 75.45-187.91 MPa; Case 2: 106.81-108.70 MPa vs 79.18-135.48 MPa) along with resonance frequency analysis (Case 1: 7763.2 Hz vs 7003.6 Hz; Case 2: 7910.1 Hz vs 7102.1 Hz) as well as residual stress analysis. The assembly's stress patterns and resonance frequencies were evaluated against a commercially available implant system. It was observed that the customized implant assemblies tended to outperform the commercially available solution in most simulated scenarios.