3D Printed Indirect Bonding Trays - Accuracy of Rigid Versus Resilient Resin a Clinical in Vivo Study

Orthodontic clinicians distinguish between direct and indirect brackets placement. Using the direct procedure, brackets are placed on the patients tooth without a transfer appliance. While the indirect method takes advantage of placing the brackets on a dental model under laboratory surrounding.

The conventional method of indirect bracket positioning uses plaster models from the treated dental arches. Following the positioned brackets are transferred from the model to the patient mouth using a so called indirect bonding trays (IDB). IDB's represent a transfer aid for the bracket placement. Advantages of this procedure can be an improvement of the tooth axis (facial axis) assessment especially since the model is freely movable in space further an optimized visibility with laboratory lighting. The placement on the digital model offers a variety of options with regards to measurement, magnification, contrast adjustment and exact referencing on the neighboring tooth.

Digital Workflow:

Under the broad term of rapid prototyping developments of applications allow a fully digital workflow while planning and manufacturing IDB's. The construction of bonding trays is based on a digital 3D model and is further manufactured using stereolithographic 3D printers. Similar to conventional IDB's there is the question of the optimal material with regards to transfer accuracy, dimensional stability and clinical applicability with 3D printed IDB's. Besides the question of transfer accuracy, the planned study will document the percentual number of brackets which failed to bond with the corresponding tooth (Lost Rate) using two different materials.

Objective: