Search

Digital 3D models of dental arches and facial soft tissues may constitute an important support for clinicians and maxillofacial surgeons. They can be obtained using a noninvasive and harmless method1 starting from acquisitions made with a dental scanner and a stereophotogrammetric device. The aim of the study was to compare measures taken on the 3D dental and facial models with the ones obtained through a Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) device in order to evaluate the reliability of the proposed method and its repeatability. Dental and facial data about a population of seven healthy subjects just undergone CBCT have been acquired and registered twice by three operators following a protocol devised for previous works published by this same laboratory2,3. Five craniofacial and six dental landmarks have been taken into account and their linear distances have been calculated. The errors between the corresponding distances in the alternative method and in the CBCT volume have been normalized on the corresponding distance measured on the CBCT model. Statistically significant differences between repetitions and operators were found in the distances between the orbitalis and dental landmarks. We assume that these differences might have been caused by the difficulty in the positioning of the craniofacial soft-tissue landmarks on the CBCT scans. Also the delicate steps for registering the models of the dental arches could have generated errors as it has been suggested by the significant difference between experienced and inexperienced operators. It is advisable to continue the study on more patients in order to obtain a larger data set. It might also be good to consider soft tissue landmarks that are closer to the respective bone tissue ones., Italian Journal of Anatomy and Embryology, Vol 118, No 2 (Supplement) 2013

Background: To evaluate the effectiveness of hyaluronic acid (HA) gel injection with and without plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF) for the management of interdental papillary loss. Methods: A single blinded randomized clinical trial was carried out on 21 subjects with 34 sites. Patients within the age group 18–45 years who had Class I and II papillary recession in the maxillary anterior region were selected. The sites involved were randomly assigned to Group HA alone and Group HA + PRGF. The patients were recalled 4 weeks after receiving supragingival and subgingival instrumentation. HA or HA + PRGF was injected into the defective papilla at baseline and at 3 and 6 weeks. Image based measurements of Papillary Width (PW), Papillary Deficient Height (PDH), Deficient Area (DA), Deficient Volume (DV) were registered at baseline, 3 weeks, 6 weeks and 12 weeks. A vernier caliper was used to measure the papillary depth in the impression made using additional silicone impression material pre- and post-intervention. Results: There was a significant improvement in the within-group comparison of PW, PDH, DA and DV in both the groups. Group HA + PRGF showed significantly greater improvement in comparison to Group HA alone in terms of PDH, DA and DV at 6 and 12 weeks. Conclusions: Even though HA gel has already been established as a promising injectable agent in the minimally invasive treatment of interdental papillary deficiency, PRGF may also have a significant adjuvant effect when used along with HA. Further clinical studies with longer follow up duration, larger sample size and standardization of the tooth shape are required for a better understanding of the adjuvant effect of PRGF when used along with HA.