Digital technique for in vivo assessment of internal and marginal fit of fixed dental prostheses.

Digital approaches to assess the misfit of fixed dental prostheses have been limited to in vitro evaluation. The present article describes a fully digital technique for the in vivo assessment of the fit of fixed dental prostheses by means of a chairside optical scanner and software for 3-dimensional (3D) analysis. The 3D digital capture is performed in 3 steps: an extraoral scan of the restoration, an intraoral scan of the abutment tooth, and an intraoral registration scan of the restoration positioned on the abutment tooth.