Prospective Clinical Study on the Accuracy of Static Computer-assisted Implant Surgery in Patients Rehabilitated With Distal Free-end Implants. Conventional Versus CAD-CAM Surgical Guides

Planning of the implants is made in the ideal prosthetic position based on a previous CAD-CAM (computer aided design - computer aided manufacturing) wax-up. sCAIS facilitates correct prosthetic emergence and therefore contributes to secure optimum esthetic and biological outcomes, affording long-term stability of the soft and hard tissues.

These surgical guides can be manufactured using CAD-CAM or conventional technologies in the laboratory, employing drilling machines or mechanical positioners. In the case of the conventional guide manufactured in the laboratory, the technician creates a radiological guide that is then converted into a surgical guide - the whole process being analogic, except for planning of the implants. At present, and with the development of digital workflows, CAD-CAM procedures are used for both the design and manufacture of the surgical guide, using different processes. This simplifies the workflow, which can reduce the costs of smaller rehabilitations.

Clinical studies on accuracy published in the literature are heterogeneous, with differences in the systems used, the surgical technique, the type of surgical guide support or the type of edentulism involved.These data justify further research in humans, focusing on fully sCAIS, in order to reduce heterogeneity. Furthermore, a review of the literature revealed a lack of clinical publications on the accuracy of CAD-CAM surgical guides compared to conventional guides. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to compare the accuracy of CAD-CAM and conventional guides in candidates for distal free-end implant treatment, and to analyze the effects of possible confounding factors inherent to the patient or the surgical technique employed. Intra- and postoperative complications of the surgical technique were also evaluated, as well as implant success and peri-implant marginal bone loss. Hence, the null hypothesis of the study was the absence of any difference in accuracy between both guides.

A prospective, controlled, examiner- and statistician-blinded, parallel-arm quasi-experimental study was carried out at the University of Valencia (Valencia, Spain). Two groups were established according to the surgical guide design involved: conventional (control group [CG]) or CAD-CAM (test group [TG]).