Digital Technique to Analyze the Wear of Implants and Natural Tooth as Antagonist.

Digital Technique to Analyze the Wear of Screw-Retained Implant-Supported Metal-Ceramic Dental Prostheses and Natural Tooth as Antagonist. A Pilot Study

The aim of this study was to describe a novel digital technique to analyze the wear of screw-retained implant-supported metal-ceramic dental prostheses and natural tooth as antagonist. Materials and methods: Ten patients were consecutively included to rehabilitate partial edentulism by dental implants. Both the screw-retained implant-supported metal-ceramic dental prostheses and the natural tooth as antagonist were submitted to a digital impression through an intraoral scan to generate a Standard Tessellation Language digital file preoperatively (STL1), at 3 months (STL2), and 6 months (STL3) follow-up. Afterwards, an alignment procedure of the digital files (STL1-STL3) was performed on a reverse engineering morphometric software and volume changes at the screw-retained implant-supported metal-ceramic dental prostheses and the natural tooth as antagonist were analyzed using Student's t-test. Moreover, Gage R&R statistical analysis was conducted to analyze the repeatability and reproducibility of the digital technique.

Inclusion Criteria:

• in good health, who presented partial edentulism in the posterior upper maxilla, were consecutively included to rehabilitate partial edentulism by dental implants

Exclusion Criteria:

• all those who do not meet the inclusion criteria