Evaluation of the Accuracy of Different Intraoral Scanners in Endocrown Restorations.

Abstract

Purpose: To assess the trueness and precision of various intraoral scanners (IOSs) in relation to endocrown restorations.

Materials and methods: One mandibular molar was mounted within an acrylic resin block. The tooth was prepared for an endocrown restoration, involving a 2-mm cusp reduction, a 3.5-mm pulp chamber depth, and a butt-joint margin. The sample was scanned by three different IOSs (3Shape TRIOS 4, Carestream 3800, and Medit i700), with 10 scans taken by each and then converted into STL files. A high-precision scanner captured a reference scan, which was also converted into an STL file. Trueness was assessed by superimposing each sample scan onto the reference, while precision was determined by superimposing the STL files within each group. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA with Tukey HSD post hoc test and Mann-Whitney U test (α = .05).

Results: The study found that TRIOS 4 exhibited the highest trueness (22.44 ± 15.01 μm), followed by Medit i700 (24.59 ± 12.80 μm) and CS 3800 (29.05 ± 7.75 μm). In terms of precision, CS 3800 had the best results (21.55 ± 8.87 μm), followed by Medit i700 (43.80 ± 17.42 μm) and TRIOS 4 (47.28 ± 13.93 μm). Only the differences between the precision of the CS 3800 and the other two scanners were statistically significant.

Conclusions: The study found that all three scanners had similar trueness, but CS 3800 had significantly better precision than the other two scanners. However, all of the scanners demonstrated acceptable levels of accuracy in the context of endocrown preparation.