Clinical application of a stereolithographic surgical guide for simple positioning of orthodontic mini-implants.

AIM

To describe a clinical application of a new surgical guide system that uses cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) images, an implant-positioning program (SimPlant), and stereolithography to make a surgical guide for accurate placement of orthodontic mini-implants.

METHODS

A patient who was planning to have orthodontic mini-implant treatment on the posterior maxilla was recruited to assess the feasibility of using CBCT images in an implant-positioning guide program (SimPlant 9.02, Materilise, Leuven, Belgium). Acquisition slices for the posterior maxilla were 0.15 mm in panoramic mode of PSR 9000N model (Asahi Roentgen, Kyoto, Japan). The surgical guide for the mini-implant was fabricated from the transported CBCT data.

RESULTS

The completed surgical guide was easily placed intra-orally and permitted simple and rapid placement of the mini-implant. The site of the implant placement was accurate, while the vector varied slightly from the planned vector.

CONCLUSION

A postplacement CBCT demonstrated accurate placement of the mini-implant on the left and a minor discrepancy between the simulated mini-implant position and clinical position on the right. Improvements in the CBCT resolution and laser-scanning technology are likely to eliminate any discrepancies.