ACCURACY OF DIGITAL FACE SCANS OBTAINED FROM TWO DIFFERENT 3D SCANNERS: A COMPARATIVE CLINICAL STUDY

*Ala’a M. Khalifa INTRODUCTION Using 3D scans of the patient’s face significantly enhanced esthetic assessment for accurate diagnosis and virtual treatment planning (1). Commercially available 3D face scanning systems are either static or mobilecompatible scanners. Limitations of the static face scanning systems include the high costs of purchase, the need for a properly-illuminated room, well-trained users and powerful computers to process scanned images. Face scanning using smart phones and tablet devices has therefore become popular due to their user-friendly manipulation, reduced training time and cost-efficiency (2). The objective of the present study was to evaluate the accuracy (trueness, precision) of 3D facial reconstructions performed by 2 facial scanners (Bellus3D, version 2.0.3.25; Bellus3D, Inc. and Carestream face scanner, CS9600) compared to manual measurements. METHODOLOGY Twenty dentate, adult, healthy participants were selected. Approval of the study by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty Dentistry, Alexandria University, Egypt (IRB NO: 00010556 – IORG 0008839). Stickers (Online Labels, LLC) were used to mark 9 anthropometric facial landmarks on each participant’s face. For all participants linear inter-landmark measurements taken was divided into 3 groups: manual group, bellus group and CS group (Figure 1). Trueness values of each scanner was assessed by calculating the mean differences between manual and digital readings. Precision of (Bellus and CS) was determined by inspecting 5 scans of each scanner for 1 participant. Superimposition of 2 scans of each scanner was performed on the Exocad software by align meshes for qualitative analysis by a color map. (Figure 2) Statistical analysis was done by a statistical software program (IBM SPSS Statistics, v20; IBM Corp).