Vázquez-Vázquez, Febe Carolina¹

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The digital or information age began in the mid-1970s and since then the pace of technology has increased rapidly, revolutionizing the way we communicate, interact, live and work. Technology has a major impact on dentistry and will bring substantial changes in teaching, research, and patient care. Among the changes in teaching methods are innovations in clinical simulation and e-learning, which have gradually replaced the use of 2D images available in textbooks with 3D models, specifically in the study of human anatomy because they can reliably recreate the anatomical details of bones, thus evaluating the usefulness of these models in the practical study of anatomy.¹

Therefore, the use of CAD-CAM (Computer-Aided Design-Computer-Aided Manufacturing) technology has become more common, and consequently, compatibility with various materials such as ceramics, metals, polymers, and composites has been necessary to develop these 3D models.² In this sense, 3D printing is one of the advanced manufacturing technologies that are based on computer-aided digital design (CAD), its use in dentistry began in the late 1980s and its first clinical use is reported in 1999; and it is standardized under ISO 17296-2: 2015 which determined seven categories of additive manufacturing among which extrusion and layer-by-layer deposition methods are the most widely used today and applications in dentistry range from the field of prosthodontics, oral and maxillofacial surgery and oral implantology to orthodontics, endodontics, and periodontics.³

In the field of dentistry, 3D printing has a wide range of applications ranging from laboratory (pre-clinical) to clinical application, which in turn enables and demands the creation of new and more efficient methods for the manufacture of dental products, this in turn allows and demands the creation of new and more efficient methods for the manufacture of dental products, in which the development of working models for the diagnosis of diseases affecting the maxillofacial region and prosthetic rehabilitation stands out, as it provides a necessary tool in surgical planning by printing stereolithography and surgical guides, which contribute to providing patients with more predictable, less invasive procedures and minimizing complications. For this reason, extensive research has been carried out on the accuracy and reproducibility of digital models, and simultaneously, in clinical practice, intraoral scanners are becoming more and more common, which will allow the development of more applications with these technologies and continue to bring dentistry into the digital era.

REFERENCES

1. Ugidos Lozano MT, Haro FB, Ruggiero A, Manzoor S, Juanes Méndez JA. Evaluation of the applicability of 3d models as perceived by the students of health sciences. J Med Syst. 2019; 43 (5): 108. doi: 10.1007/s10916-019-1238-0.

2. Tian Y, Chen C, Xu X, Wang J, Hou X, Li X et al. A Review of 3D printing in dentistry: technologies, affecting factors, and applications. Scanning. 2021; 9950131. doi: 10.1155/2021/9950131.

3. Revilla-León M, Sadeghpour M, Ozcan, M. An update on applications of 3D printing technologies used for processing polymers used in implant dentistry. Odontology. 2020; 108 (3): 331-338. doi: 10.1007/s10266-019-00441-7.

AFFILIATIONS

¹ Doctora en Ciencias, Maestra en Ciencias. Laboratorio de Investigación de Materiales Dentales y Biomateriales. División de Estudios de Posgrado e Investigación, Facultad de Odontología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). México.

CORRESPONDENCE

Febe Carolina Vázquez-Vázquez. E-mail: fcarolina.vazquez@gmail.com