Accuracy of soy-based resins for dental 3D printing

Abstract

Objectives: To verify the accuracy of soy-based resins for dental three-dimensional (3D) printing.

Materials and methods: After conducting a power analysis, models of 10 consecutively treated patients were produced from four different resins using a dental 3D printer. Two of these resins were soy based and therefore biodegradable. These 20 models were measured manually with a caliper as well as digitally by software and compared based on measurement parameters in all three spatial axes.

Results: No statistically significant differences were found between the four different resins or between the manual and digital measurements.

Conclusions: Soy-based resin seems to be a suitable material for orthodontic 3D printing and is a more environmentally friendly alternative to conventional dental resins. Digital model analysis seems to produce comparable results to manual measurement.

Keywords: 3D printing; Accuracy; Soy-based resin.

Figure 1

Upper and lower models of the same patient from the four resin materials evaluated in this study (from left to right): Ortho Model Resin OD01 (Shining3D, Hangzhou, China); Plant Based Eco UV Resin (Anycubic, Shenzhen, China); Plant Based Resin+ (Anycubic, Shenzhen, China); Water Washable Resin W1 (Shining3D, Hangzhou, China).

Figure 2

Models on the build platform of the DLP 3D printer after completion of the printing process.

Figure 3

Screenshot of the software used (OnyxCeph, Image Instruments, Chemnitz, Germany). The left image shows a rare case for which the software was not able to recognize the complete dental crown automatically, possibly due to the fixed retainer. This had to be corrected manually (right image).

Figure 4

Bland-Altmann plot for the values of manual versus digital orthodontic model analysis. Since there were no significant differences among the four resins, the median values were used for the plot. The diagram allows a visual assessment of the relationship between the two plotted variables. Middle line: mean of the difference; upper line: mean of the difference plus 1.96 standard deviation of the difference; lower line: mean of the difference minus 1.96 standard deviation of the difference.

Figure 5

Presentation of the average values of all measurements of the four resins as well as of the digital measurements (measured values in millimeters). The explanations for the values examined can be found in Table 2.