Does clinical experience affect the bracket bonding accuracy of guided bonding devices in vitro?

Objectives: To study whether and how the clinical experience of the operator affects the accuracy of bracket placement using guided bonding devices (GBDs) in vitro.

Materials and methods: Five resin models were bonded virtually with brackets, and the corresponding GBDs were generated and three-dimensionally printed. Nine operators, which included three dental students, three orthodontic students, and three orthodontists, bonded the brackets on the resin models using GBDs on a dental mannequin. After being bonded with brackets, the models were scanned, and the actual and designed positions of the brackets were compared.

Results: There was no immediate debonding. The orthodontists spent a significantly shorter time (22.36 minutes) in bracket bonding than the dental students (24.62 minutes; P < .05). The brackets tended to deviate to the buccal side in the dental student group. Linear deviations tended to be smallest in the orthodontic student group, but no significant difference was found among operators with different clinical experience (P > .5). All linear and angular deviations in each group were under 0.5 mm and 2°, respectively.

Conclusions: Clinical experience was positively related to the bonding accuracy using GBDs, especially in the buccolingual dimension. Inexperience also led to longer bonding duration. However, bonding accuracy was clinically acceptable in general.