Influence of Operator Experience on Scanning Time and Accuracy with Two Different Intraoral Scanners - A Prospective Clinical Trial

Impression of the oral cavity represents an important step, and intraoral scanners (IOSs) enable obtaining data directly without the need of any impression materials or other impression making devices.Digital models are now being widely used for orthodontic diagnosis and treatment planning.They have several advantages over the conventional plaster models that include less storage space, lower risk of damage or breakage, and ease in transferring the data to other clinicians for efficient and extended patient care.Additionally, the 3D models allow prior visualization of hard and soft-tissues, which increases the treatment efficiency, reduces the clinical time and increases patient acceptance and comfort.[1][2][3] Recent advances in chairside and laboratory digital technology Objective: Operator experience and scanner type may influence the time taken and obtained accuracy of intraoral scanning.This study aimed to evaluate the influence of operator experience on the scanning time and correlate the accuracy of the scans taken with two different intraoral scanners (TRIOS 3, 3Shape and i500, Medit). Methods:In this trial, a total of 20 subjects who required intraoral scanning for orthodontic treatment were included.Intraoral scanning was done with two different scanners, TRIOS 3 and i500.One operator each with high (group 1), medium (group 2) and low (group 3) levels of experience performed intra-oral scanning with two different intraoral scanners.A One-Way ANOVA test was performed to assess the intergroup difference in scanning time and Kendall's tau's correlation test to determine the correlation between the experience of the operator and accuracy among the three groups using the two scanners.Also Independent samples t-test were performed to assess the intragroup differences in scanning time with two different scanners.Results: The scanning time was influenced by the type of intraoral scanner and operator experience (p<0.05).No significant correlation between operator experience and scanning accuracy in the three groups was noted (p>0.05).Statistically significant intragroup differences in scanning time between the two scanners were noted (p<0.05).Conclusion: Less experienced operators took more time to scan a subject.Accuracy of scanning among three groups using two scanners was not influenced by the experience of the operator.Scanning with i500 IOS took more time than TRIOS.