Expanding the Application of Digital Dentistry with 3D Patient Monitoring.

Intraoral scanners have been used to capture data for the design and subsequent manufacture of dental restorations and also for registering color clinical images. Scanners can capture datasets for future use and comparisons. This manuscript describes the potential of using software algorithms to superimpose 3D images captured at different times to calculate dimensional changes at the click of a button in various dental fields. 3D patient monitoring, with the advance of artificial intelligence and its built-in capacity for data analyses, will allow dentists and researchers to calculate volumetric changes and predict potentially adverse clinical outcomes.