As you probably know, I've spent a lot of my testing time this year, working with 3D printing. If you'd like to know more about the entire world of 3D printing in dentistry, you can read my cover story from the September issue of Dental Products Report by following this link. That article has a lot more info on the entire subject than I normally cover in a blog post here.
Today's subject is just to expand things a bit for people that are looking to get into this, but are a little confused about it. As I've said before, the tech has been around since before Covid in 2020. Some offices even decided to purchase one... but they are critically underused by most of those offices. The main impediment? Design. Printing and finishing a project is actually pretty fast and easy. It's getting that project to a form that is something you need... well that's another story. Or at least it used to be. Todays' post is about how easy it can be.
One of the systems I've been working with is the DentalMile system from DMG. The company sells a complete turnkey system. They sell everything you need, including the resins, and every piece, including the resins, are validated to all work together. That's a huge plus.
One of the other parts of the 3D printing space I've been evaluating is resins. Not all resins work and cure properly in all 3D printers. If you currently have a printer and want to try a new resin, be sure and check with the printer manufacturer. The will have a readily available list of resins they have verified to work with their system.
I've also been working with VOCO on testing some of their 3D resins. They do not currently sell a printer, but they have validated that their resins work with the Asiga line. Asiga is a company based out of Australia that are becoming bigger players in the market here in the US. The Asiga UV Max is verified with VOCO resins and because I have one, I figured this was a great case for that.
I recently had a case where a patient had a hard acrylic splint they had been wearing for several years and it finally needed replacing. I didn't do the original one, but the patient understands the value of wearing one and asked me if I could make a new one. One of the resins I've been testing is VOCO's V-Print Splint and I wanted to use it on this case.
Of course the critical part of any occlusal guard or splint is the design. As a doctor, you want precision when creating a hard splint.
That's where having access to a good design system enters the equation. DMG has a Cloud based system called DentaMile Connect. It's part of the DMG system and users pay a monthly or yearly fee for access.
There are lots of design systems out there, but I've been really impressed with DentaMile Connect. The system uses a lot of AI in the design process, which makes creating things incredibly easy. I downloaded the patient's scan to my computer. We use iTero scanners in the office and it's easy to log into the iTero Cloud based storage and download the stl files. I selected 'models mounted in occlusion' and then downloaded.
In DentaMile Connect, I uploaded the upper and lower scans and selected occlusal splint. The system took the scan data (from both stl files) and then virtually mounted them on a virtual articulator. This greatly simplifies the design process.
Advancing through the process, the system created the guard and showed it to me on the models in occlusion.
In the above image you'll notice the red and green dots in the UR & UL corners. Those represent the condyles. You then can adjust the margins of the device. The next two images will show what I mean.
This image shows the margin from the lingual aspect. Once again, if an edit is necessary, it's a simple click and drag.
When the correct margin is done, you are then given a view of the occlusion which the virtual articulator has worked out and proposed. All of this is completely editable if you want to change anything.
Once the design is completed and finalized, the file can be downloaded and printed. In this particular case I was not using the DMG printer. I chose the Asiga UV Max because I wanted to use the VOCO V-Splint Print resin and I knew the VOCO resin was validated with that system. I bring this up because this is a great reason for 'Open Architecture' systems. I created in DentaMile Connect and downloaded the completed project as an stl file.
I then opened the stl file with Asiga Composer which is Asiga's 'nesting software'. A nesting software is a program that translates the stl file into a language that the printer can understand. From Asiga Composer, I sent the completed project to the printer via WiFi. The completed guard is the first image in today's post.
Really, the point of this rather long post is #1 how easy this is to do. The design took about 5 minutes. Point #2 is that if you find a design system/program you like, you can use it with any printer you have. As long as it is 'open architecture'. In those systems, everything works with everything else.
In this case there were no impressions, no models, nothing physical... other than the patient. This is a truly digital workflow. The guard went right to place, fit perfectly, and required zero adjustments.
3D printing is going to change dentistry in the next 12-18 months... maybe sooner than that. This is a tech that can be used routinely for 'bread and butter' things that we do every day. If you've been thinking about exploring this tech, the time is now. It's affordable and easy to do. A well trained dental assistant can design things like this and have it ready for doctor approval in minutes. This is not a tech that needs to improve or will see radical changes in the future. We've already seen those changes. This is ready for prime time right now.
If I can do this, *you* can do this too!
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