Objective quantitative digital evaluation of crown preparation using intraoral optical scanner: Novel preclinical teaching method.

Background: Adequate preclinical training in dentistry is crucial for students before engaging in patient treatment. Constructive feedback from the instructors plays a pivotal role in guiding the students to master skills, boost confidence, and above all ensure patient safety. This manuscript introduces a new method employing intraoral scanners as digital tools to provide objective and quantitative feedback for crown preparation evaluation in preclinical prosthodontics.

Material and methods: Initial reference scan before preparation on typodont and preparation scan after crown preparation was obtained. Utilizing the patient monitoring feature in Trios 3 scanner (3Shape, Copenhagen, Denmark) superimposition of two scans was performed.

Results: The method enabled a comprehensive quantitative preparation assessment compared to the tooth pre-preparation. This includes tooth reduction in any axis, abutment height measurement, evaluation of the status of adjacent teeth after preparation, and proposed capability for estimating the convergence angle.

Conclusions: The method enabled a subjective quantitative evaluation of crown preparation in phantom model. This method requires no additional hardware or software beyond the basic functions embedded in the intraoral scanner. Implementation of this function not only facilitates feedback and self-evaluation for students during preclinical teaching but also enhances their proficiency in using intraoral scanners in clinical practice in perspective. Key words:Dental education, prosthodontics, intraoral scanner, feedback, self-assessment.