Comparison Between Conventional and Digital Dentures Post Delivery

Objectives:
Complete dentures have been fabricated for decades as a treatment option for edentulous patients. Recent advances in CAD/CAM technology allow complete dentures to be virtually designed from scanned impressions. This translates into shorter treatment times with fewer appointments. Further, outcomes of this study allow for consideration in application of the digital denture process as a component in a dental school curriculum. This study assessed patient satisfaction and specific clinical outcomes including retention, esthetics, lip support, VDO, and occlusion of digital dentures in comparison to dentures fabricated in the traditional/conventional method.
Methods: 6 patients with two edentulous arches were used for this study. Two sets of complete dentures (conventional compared to digital) were fabricated per edentulous arch per patient. Patients were asked to compare the dentures using a survey after one month post-delivery. All outcomes were evaluated by the same individual to eliminate bias. The survey consisted of questions designed to assess denture and patient characteristics for each type of denture delivered. Responses were given from a range of one to ten (poor to excellent).
Results: Patients were generally very satisfied with both sets of dentures. Patients rated the retention of the mandibular digital denture to be higher than the traditional denture (p=0.01). The remaining criterion was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: Patients indicated retention of mandibular digital dentures is superior when compared to traditional mandibular dentures. In one-month surveys, most patients preferred the digital dentures although differences were not statistically significant. Digital dentures have equal patient satisfaction to conventional dentures in most categories and are more satisfying for the mandibular denture.