Clinical Research Directory

The digital workflow in dentistry has proven in the past decades to be a time-efficient, multifunctional, effortless, and accessible approach. The inherited shortages milling machines represented by the incapability to produce accurate complex hollow structures may give preference to modern 3D ceramic printing. Computer-aided-design/computer-aided-manufacturing (CAD/CAM) in dentistry is a digital subtractive approach for manufacturing indirect restorations. Nevertheless, waste materials and milling burs wearing are considered as key disadvantages of CAD/CAM technology, and are the main drive to improve 3D printing technology (additive manufacturing) as the latter has shown considerable efficiency in minimising wasted materials.

3D printing technologies are developing more intensively in dentistry as this technology has the capacity to produce shapes or models with high accuracy and in a short time. This method of fabrication takes less time and money and saves on materials compared to CAD/CAM. Although it seems that digital manufacturing technology has made great changes in the restorative dentistry field, this technology is still not fully in use. This is possibly because of the lack of studies and research on this technology, particularly in terms of clinical performance and patient-centred outcomes. 3D printing technologies are novel technologies with a lack of research; therefore, the processing of 3D printing materials is still controversial.