Accuracy assessment of three-dimensional abutment tooth data construction using swept-source optical coherence tomography

Abstract

A limitation of widely used intraoral scanners (IOSs) is their inability to capture finish lines at the subgingival marginal area, as they only extract surface information. Swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) captures high-speed, high-resolution cross-sectional images of soft and hard tissues. Integrating this technology can overcome clinical IOS limitations. Therefore, this study was conducted to fabricate crowns from three-dimensional images scanned with SS-OCT as a proof-of-principle for its application in IOSs and to evaluate fit accuracy. TRIOS3 was used for comparison, with both SS-OCT and TRIOS3 scanned three times, and crowns were fabricated using the same digital workflow. Internal gaps were measured using scanning electron microscopy, and marginal fit was evaluated via microscopy. Results showed that TRIOS3 had superior accuracy. SS-OCT can image solely in the occlusal direction, with accuracy decreasing at greater depths, which reduces precision around the margin. Additionally, SS-OCT lacks automatic correction of surface information in computer-aided design (CAD) software. To improve SS-OCT accuracy for abutment tooth measurements, automatic margin correction, improved CAD compatibility, and specialized probes for capturing tooth features are needed.