A novel digital technique to quantify the area and volume of enamel removal after interproximal enamel reduction

Abstract

The aim of this study was to show a novel and accurate digital measurement protocol by analyzing the area and volume for interproximal tooth enamel surface reduction. In total, 14 lower teeth from all dental sectors were embedded into an epoxy resin and distributed as the lower dental arch, keeping the contact points. The experimental model was submitted to an intraoral digital impression before and after interproximal tooth enamel surface reduction using air-rotor strips and then re-contouring and polishing the interproximal enamel surfaces. These steps helped obtain standard tessellation language (STL) digital files. Furthermore, each tooth in the preoperative and postoperative full-arch STL digital files was segmented individually and aligned to analyze the area and volume of the interproximal tooth enamel surface reduction using engineering morphometry software. Descriptive analysis of the area and volume of the interproximal tooth enamel surface reduction was performed using a Student t-test. Higher enamel reduction area (3.53 ± 3.08 mm2) and volume (0.32 ± 0.22 mm3) values were shown on the distal surface compared with the area (2.97 ± 3.05 mm2) and volume (0.22 ± 0.16 mm3) of the enamel reduction on the mesial surface measured using the morphometric measurement digital protocol. The morphometric measurement protocol is an accurate digital measurement protocol for analyzing the area and volume of interproximal enamel surface reduction.