Effects of different types of intraoral scanners and scanning ranges on the precision of digital implant impressions in edentulous maxilla: An in vitro study.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the precision of digital implant impressions in comparison with conventional impressions and assess the impact of the scanning range on precision. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An edentulous maxilla model with six implants was scanned with four intraoral scanners (IOSs) and a dental laboratory scanner five times each, and stereolithography (STL) data were generated. A conventional silicone impression was made, and a model was fabricated, which was scanned using the laboratory scanner. This procedure was also repeated five times. Nine different ranges of interest (ROIs) were defined, and the average discrepancies of the measurement points between each pair of STL images out of five for each ROI were calculated. The effects of "impression method" and "ROI" on precision, as evaluated by the averaged discrepancy, were tested by two-way analysis of variance (p < .05). RESULTS: The effects of "impression methods" and "ROI" and their interactions were statistically significant. The discrepancies in the scanned datasets of the dental laboratory scanner were significantly lower than those in the other impression methods. The discrepancies of the IOSs were comparable with those of the laboratory scanner when the ROI was limited, however; the discrepancies deteriorated when the ROI expanded across the arch, while those of the laboratory scanner remained stable irrespective of the ROI. CONCLUSIONS: Within the limitation of this in vitro study, digital implant impressions by IOSs may show clinically acceptable precision when the scan range is limited, such as in 3-unit superstructure supported by two implants.