Effect of Retractors on the Accuracy of Capturing Peripheral Borders in Totally Edentulous Patients: An In Vivo Study

Description :

This research aims to assess the effect of the retractors on the accuracy of completely edentulous jaw impressions. In digital impressions, scan retractors facilitate stretching and fixation of the vestibular area. They also help in retracting the lips and cheeks (Fang et al. 2019). The different retraction techniques introduced in various studies include: a flexible lip retractor “OptraGate” from Ivoclar (Chebib et al. 2019), a specialized scan retractor fabricated by DIO Implant Co., (Fang et al. 2019), a cheek holder by Brånemark (Unkovskiy et al. 2019), and finally finger retraction of cheeks and lips to determine vestibular depth was also used (Goodacre et al. 2018). However, to date no study has evaluated the accuracy (trueness and precision) of capturing peripheral borders in totally edentulous digital impressions using scan retractors. Therefore, it would be interesting to evaluate the effect of these retractors on the accuracy of intraoral scans by comparing the conventional impression technique (border molding and ZOE impression- control) to digital impression techniques made with an intraoral scanner and using two different scan retractors, in vivo.