Abstract
ObjectivesThe purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of 3D intraoral scanning for documentation of palatal soft tissue by evaluating the accuracy of shape, color, and curvature.Materials and methodsIntraoral scans of ten participants’ upper dentition and palate were acquired with the TRIOS® 3D intraoral scanner by two observers. Conventional impressions were taken and digitized as a gold standard. The resulting surface models were aligned using an Iterative Closest Point approach. The absolute distance measurements between the intraoral models and the digitized impression were used to quantify the trueness and precision of intraoral scanning. The mean color of the palatal soft tissue was extracted in HSV (hue, saturation, value) format to establish the color precision. Finally, the mean curvature of the surface models was calculated and used for surface irregularity.ResultsMean average distance error between the conventional impression models and the intraoral models was 0.02 ± 0.07 mm (p = 0.30). Mean interobserver color difference was − 0.08 ± 1.49° (p = 0.864), 0.28 ± 0.78% (p = 0.286), and 0.30 ± 1.14% (p = 0.426) for respectively hue, saturation, and value. The interobserver differences for overall and maximum surface irregularity were 0.01 ± 0.03 and 0.00 ± 0.05 mm.ConclusionsThis study supports the hypothesis that the intraoral scan can perform a 3D documentation of palatal soft tissue in terms of shape, color, and curvature.Clinical relevanceAn intraoral scanner can be an objective tool, adjunctive to the clinical examination of the palatal tissue.
Highlights
A thorough clinical oral examination (COE) and follow up is essential in detecting possible intraoral pathology [1,2,3,4]
The digitized conventional impression and the models acquired with the intraoral scanner were exported in a Wavefront object file format (OBJ)
Epstein et al [2] conducted a systematic review to assess the effectiveness of the COE in predicting histological diagnosis of dysplasia or oral squamous cell cancer (OSCC)
Summary
A thorough clinical oral examination (COE) and follow up is essential in detecting possible intraoral pathology [1,2,3,4]. The size of the lesion can be estimated or measured with a ruler or probe. Additional characteristics such as growth pattern, color changes, consistency of the mucosa, and mobility of the underlying tissues should be described [1, 4]. These clinical features should be documented in detail in the patient’s file to enable communication with other clinicians and to detect any changes or suspicious signs for malignancy during follow-up
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