3D-Printed Surgical Template 'Mucoguide' to Increase Predictability in Mucogingival Surgery: Technical Note and Case Report.

Abstract

Background: Mucogingival surgery is reliable technique to treat both functional and esthetic issues on teeth. In particular, the treatment success of gingival recessions depends on flap design. An inaccurate flap design could lead to surgical failure. For this reason, a new software-guided tool to design and perform mucogingival incisions was proposed.

Methods: After the definition of the flap design according to the mucogingival technique, a template is designed to allow the clinician to guide the mucogingival flap in terms of position of the incision lines and blade inclination. The guide also incorporated the palatal box collect a connective tissue graft. The printed guide is stabilized teeth support and the 45-degree inclination of the edges allows to realize a beveled incision following the flap design. Afterwards the guide is removed and the surgery is completed with papillae de-epithelialization, connective tissue grafting and flap closure.

Results: At 12 months both sites resulted in successful coverage according to the planning.

Conclusions: In order to minimize surgical failures related to a poor flap design, a new digital tool was proposed to transfer flap design from the screen to the surgical field reducing surgical time and mistakes that could lead to a negative outcome.