Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies put in our hands an unlimited potential for software and electronic tools development. In Remedico, for instance, we have Dentaverse – the first-ever digital treatment presentation tool that schematically demonstrates how dental procedures will be conducted for patients.
Another way to use VR/AR is surgery assistance – an approach that makes it possible for a doctor to see through the tissues with the help of a headset. Recently, a group of Chinese scientists developed an augmented reality system prototype that allows dentists to compare the accuracy of placed implants.
Researchers obtained 32 cone-beam CT scans to create 64 virtual patients, which were used to compare the accuracy of two systems:
- Traditionally used conventional dynamic navigation (DN)
- AR-based dynamic navigation
242 implants were placed among these two groups and reviewed by a group of dental specialists. As it turned out, AR dynamic navigation was as accurate as conventional DN, demonstrating similar indicators in coronal and apical deviations. Still, the AR-based systems demonstrated much higher annual deviations.
Even though the prototype was quite effective during trials, this in vitro research is the first step in colossal scientific work. The results are approximate and highly depend on the dentist's professional opinion – further studies should also provide special software for accuracy estimates. Also, according to the paper, the current potential feasibility of the system is questionable – adopting such dental AR and staff training would be pretty costly and time-consuming for average clinics.
Still, this work shows the unlimited potential of AR technology as a flexible tool for dental practice that can be applied in various ways to improve patient satisfaction.
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