Exploring the Role of Digital Dental Previsualization within the context of Rehabilitation Dentistry

Abstract

Abstract: As part of creating a beautiful smile, aesthetic dental rehabilitation plays an important role. Regarding aesthetic analy-sis in the context of oral rehabilitation and treatment predictability, Digital Smile Design (DSD), mainly through plat-forms like SmileCloud®, provides invaluable resources. Our prospective study aimed to examine the relationship be-tween the clinical experience of dental practitioners and their proficiency in using DSD (SmileCloud). Additionally, the study assessed the association between previsualization scores and the category of respondents in terms of their connec-tion to the field of dentistry (laypeople, dental students, and dentists). The study included 11 subjects for whom three different dental practitioners (a 2nd and a 6th-year dental student and a 2nd-year resident doctor in Prosthodontics) created a DSD using SmileCloud. The DSDs were evaluated in an online survey regarding tooth colour, shape, and over-all smile appearance. A number of 220 responses have been collected from 48 dentists, 86 dental students and 86 lay-people. The DSD created by the 2nd year resident doctor in Prosthodontics has received significantly higher scores for tooth shape and overall smile appearance (p<0.05), as well as for the design (p<0.05) and design*respondent (p<0.05) variables. The practitioner’s clinical experience considerably impacted aesthetic dental rehabilitation tools, which means there is always a learning curve involved.