Manufacturing of flexible surgical guide for fully edentulous patients

Abstract

Despite efficiency of modern implantology, unplanned perforation and drill deviation could be happened during freehand placement. The aim of this study was to provide a methodology for fabricating dental surgical drill guide for fully edentulous patients while it was flexible in term of changing drill diameter. The data of patient consisted of bone anatomy and radio-opaque template obtained from computed tomography. Jawbone and radio-opaque template three dimensional models converted into a three dimensional modeling software by means of an image processing package. Based on jawbone anatomy and radio-opaque template, implantation plan and design of surgical guides were carried out in three dimensional software. Rapid prototyping technique was used to manufacture several surgical guides to be used in different drilling sequences. Finally stainless steel tubes were accommodated passage of drill. Sequential surgical guides were different only in terms of the metal tubes internal diameter. This provides the ability of changing diameter of the implant or drill after fabricating surgical guide.