Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of 10 intraoral scanners for single-crown and three-unit preparation models.
Methods: A maxillary partially edentulous model was fabricated. A dental cast scanner was used to obtain standard tessellation language (STL) data. Ten intraoral scanners, namely Trios 2 (TR2; 3Shape, Copenhagen, Denmark), True Definition (TD; 3M, Saint Paul, MN, USA), CEREC AC Omnicam (OM; Dentsply Sirona, Charlotte, NC, USA), Organical Scan Oral (OS; R+K, Berlin, Germany), PlanScan (PS; Planmeca, Helsinki, Finland), DWIOP (DW; Dental Wings, Montreal, Canada), Xianlin (XL; Hangzhou Xianlin, Hangzhou, China), DL-100 (DL; Guangzhou Longcheng, Guangzhou, China), Trios 3 (TR3; 3Shape) and i500 (MD; MEDIT, Seoul, South Korea) were used to obtain stereolithography data as test groups. Trueness, precision and surface accuracy were evaluated by deviation analysis using 3D image processing software. One tooth with a three-unit preparation for each test group was registered with the reference scan data, and the absolute distance from another tooth was calculated as the absolute accuracy. The data were analysed using a Mann-Whitney U test and Dunn-Bonferroni test (α = 0.05).
Results: The best trueness, precision and surface accuracy of scanning single crown preparation were recorded with TD (trueness 2.9 μm and precision 1.9 μm) and XL (surface accuracy 20.3 ± 2.9 μm). The best trueness, precision, surface accuracy and absolute accuracy of three-unit preparations were recorded with TD (2.6 μm), XL (1.9 μm), OM (27.1 ± 5.2 μm) and TR3 (79.2 ± 19.6 μm), respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in trueness between single- and multiple-unit preparations for any of the intraoral scanners (P > 0.05). A statistically significant difference in the surface accuracy between single and multiple preparations was found for TR2, TD, OM, DW, XL, DL and MD (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: The trueness and precision of intraoral scanners for scanning three-unit preparations were nearly the same as those for single-crown preparations; however, with the exception of OS, PS and TR3, the surface accuracy of single-crown preparations was significantly better than that for three-unit preparations.