Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology
Volume 128, Issue 4, October 2019, Page e177
Background
3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing or rapid prototyping,
is a manufacturing process in which layers are sequentially added to
create an object. 3-D printing is used in a wide variety of fields,
ranging from dentistry and medicine
to food manufacturing, toy manufacturing, house manufacturing, and
automobile manufacturing and in the fashion industry. 3-D printed models
can have a wide variety of uses in dentistry, ranging from anatomic
models to surgical implants.
Objective(s)
The aim of the present study was to establish the reliability of linear cephalometric measurements made on mandibles and their respective 3-D printed models created from different voxel sizes in cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans.
Study Design
Ten
dry mandibles were used for this study. All mandibles were scanned
using the i-CAT FLX cone beam CT unit (Imaging Sciences International,
LLC, Hatfield, PA) using voxel sizes of 0.30 mm, 0.25 mm, and 0.20 mm at
16 × 8 cm field of view and 360° rotation arc. The 3-D models were
reconstructed and saved as STL files using 3-D Slicer software and sent
to a 3-D printer for printing. Two observers measured the 10 mandibles
and 30 3-D printed models. The measurements were repeated on 50% of the
samples after at least 1 week. Cronbach's alpha and intraclass
correlation coefficient were calculated to measure reliability.
Results
Good
to excellent interobserver and intraobserver reliability were achieved
across most of the measurements. There was no difference in reliability
across models made from different voxel sizes.
Discussion/Conclusions
The
present study successfully showed that the reliability of measurements
made on 3-D printed models of dry skull mandibles created using the
fused deposition modeling technique with images of different voxel sizes
from an iCAT FLX CBCT machine are valid, reproducible, and reliable and
can be used for diagnostic and clinical purposes.
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