News

An In Vitro Evaluation of the Effect of 3D Printing Orientation

Now online in the Journal of Prosthodontics, a report on the effect of 3D printing orientation on the accuracy of implant surgical templates produced with a desktop digital light processing (DLP) printer.

Contemporary desktop 3D printers are available in small sizes that can easily be used in dental offices to fabricate casts and surgical templates. Desktop DLP and SLA printers have shown promising accuracy outcomes for surgical templates, but they are still prone to errors and accuracy may be affected by the orientation of printing.

For this study, a single maxillary model with a missing central incisor was used to design a surgical template for single implant placement. Three different printing orientations were used for the template groups: horizontal, angled, and vertical.

Internal accuracy and seating accuracy were measured based on the trueness and precision of the internal surface and the vertical discrepancy after seating, respectively.

The results confirm that the orientation of 3D printed implant surgical templates fabricated with a DLP desktop printer does influence the accuracy of the templates. The horizontally printed templates consistently exhibited superior accuracy. To reduce deviation of implant placement, surgical templates should be printed with their largest dimension parallel to the printing platform.

Tahir N, Abduo J: An in vitro evaluation of the effect of 3D printing orientation on the accuracy of implant surgical templates fabricated by desktop printer. J Prosthodont 2022; https://doi.org/10.1111/jopr.13485

Follow the JOP on Twitter and Instagram for more news about recently published articles and issues!

Previous Next

Back to News