Clinical complications and quality assessments with computer-engineered complete dentures: A systematic review

Abstract

Statement of problem: Computer-engineered complete dentures (CECDs) have significant potential as shown by recent reports of outcomes and specific applications. An understanding of complications and quality assessment factors associated with CECDs from compiled data is lacking in published reports.

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic review was to determine the clinical complications and quality assessments related to CECDs.

Material and methods: Electronic searches of publications in English from January 1984 to September 2016 were performed in MEDLINE and Cochrane databases, with the results enriched by manual searches and citation mining to address 2 population intervention comparison outcome (PICO) questions: what are the clinical complications associated with CECDs, and what are the quality assessments with CECDs?

Results: A review of 5 selected articles (limited data) on CECDs revealed patient dissatisfaction related to overall outcome (25.49%), inadequate retention (20.73%), and esthetic concerns (15.09%) as common complications. Quality assessment factors that were used to report complications were identified.

Conclusions: Patient dissatisfaction, inadequate retention, and inadequate esthetics were the most common complications with CECDs. The addition of a trial placement option for CECDs could result in a better clinical outcome, reducing the incidence of other complications related to occlusal vertical dimension, centric relationship, tooth arrangement, and esthetics, improving patient satisfaction, and reducing remakes. The difficulty in reading the digital preview for an objective assessment before fabrication is a unique but not a common, complication for CECDs.