Karagkounaki Athina, Manoukakis Thomas, Margariti Ioulia, Pavlou Christoforos, Hadjichristou Christina
School of Dentistry, European University Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus.
J Dent Educ. 2025 Mar 11:e13876. doi: 10.1002/jdd.13876.
Dental education aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills required to competently manage clinical scenarios. It is critical that dental education evolves with technological advances to ensure quality student preparation. New technologies such as three-dimensional printing (3DP) have found their way into dental education and could overcome the limitations of traditional methods. The question arises: Is 3DP suitable to replace the current conventional educational modalities in preclinical dental education?
A review of the current literature was conducted in September 2024 to identify the use of 3DP models in various dental disciplines for predoctoral education. The outcomes of the retrieved records were analyzed as subjective measurements or objective assessments by the participants.
The initial search yielded 776 articles, of which 24 studies were eventually considered for qualitative synthesis. The dental disciplines in which 3DP was used in preclinical education were operative dentistry, prosthodontics, endodontics, maxillofacial surgery, and pediatric dentistry, with a maximum of seven studies in operative dentistry and a minimum of one in pediatric dentistry. In all studies, 3DP models were used in comparison to conventional typodonts, human-extracted teeth, cadaver models, or virtual reality simulators, as dictated by the university's curriculum.
3DP models can benefit preclinical education by creating different case scenarios that resemble real-life situations. They also offer greater availability and cost-effectiveness. However, further research and material development is needed to improve the tactile sensation of the models to better resemble dental tissues.
牙科教育旨在使学生具备有效处理临床情况所需的知识和技能。牙科教育必须随着技术进步而发展，以确保为学生提供高质量的准备。三维打印（3DP）等新技术已进入牙科教育领域，并可能克服传统方法的局限性。问题来了：3DP是否适合取代当前临床前牙科教育中的传统教学模式？
2024年9月对当前文献进行了综述，以确定3DP模型在牙科各学科博士前教育中的应用。检索记录的结果由参与者作为主观测量或客观评估进行分析。
初步检索得到776篇文章，最终纳入定性综合分析的有24项研究。临床前教育中使用3DP的牙科领域包括牙体牙髓病学、口腔修复学、牙髓病学、颌面外科和儿童牙科，其中牙体牙髓病学最多有7项研究，儿童牙科最少有1项研究。在所有研究中，根据大学课程要求，3DP模型与传统模型牙、拔除的人类牙齿、尸体模型或虚拟现实模拟器进行了比较。
3DP模型可以通过创建类似于现实生活情况的不同病例场景，使临床前教育受益。它们还具有更高的可用性和成本效益。然而，需要进一步的研究和材料开发来改善模型的触觉感受，使其更类似于牙齿组织。
