Time efficacy and patient comfort in digital workflow for implant supported prostheses. A systematic review.

Objectives: The aim of this study was conducted a systematic review was to answer the PICO question: “Which impression technique (digital workflow or conventional impression) promotes time efficacy and patient comfort in implant supported rehabilitations?”.
Methods: Study eligibility criteria included (1) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and/or prospective studies, (2) only implant-supported prostheses (3) direct comparison between digital impression and conventional impression in the same study. A search strategy was performing to identify published studies on PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and The Cochrane Library databases up to January 2019. The time efficacy was described in mean of minutes used in the techniques and patient’s perception was reported according to the visual analog scale (VAS) (0-100).
Results: The search identified 293 references. After analysis, five studies (02 RCTs and three prospective studies) were included according to eligibility criteria, with a total of 204 patients (mean age, 43.6 years). Four studies evaluated the patients rehabilitated with single crowns (n=190) and one study evaluated fixed dental prostheses (n=24). All the studies reported the digital workflow and for conventional impression technique with polyether was the most used material in the open-tray technique. The time efficacy for complete work assessed for digital workflow being 8,77 minutes (mean) for complete the work and for conventional impression the mean clinical time was 14,94 minutes (mean). Regarding patient’s comfort perception evaluated by VAS the score was 54,8 for digital workflow and 53,7 for conventional impression.
Conclusions: Thus, the current systematic review indicate that digital workflow will be applied in the clinical because will improve the clinical time efficiency. However, about the patient’s comfort no difference was observed in the two techniques.