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Virtual Dental Patient: How Long Until It’s Here?

  • Digital and Esthetic Dentistry (E Anadioti and P Stathopoulou, Section Editors)
  • Published:
Current Oral Health Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

Recent developments in digital technology to be generated by superimposing different 3D imaging datasets. The aim of this literature review was to provide an update on the current status of knowledge, to report on the progress in virtual patient science, and to identify further research needed to facilitate the translation to clinical practice.

Recent Findings

Case reports were identified describing different dental patient simulation techniques. Publications focused mainly on methodological feasibility of combining skeletal, facial, and dental imaging to produce virtual simulations. Clinical randomized controlled trials were scarce.

Summary

Superimposition of 3D medical data files is a feasible technique to create a virtual patient under static conditions. 3D image fusion is of interest and importance in all fields of dental medicine including diagnostics, treatment, science, and education. Future research should focus on simplifying the technology, to enable virtual patient simulation to be generated in a single-step approach.

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References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: •• Of major importance

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Reconstructive Dentistry & Gerodontology, School of Dental Medicine, University of Bern, Freiburgstr. 7, 3010, Bern, Switzerland

    Tim Joda

  2. Department of Reconstructive Dentistry, University Center for Dental Medicine Basel, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland

    Tim Joda & Nicola U. Zitzmann

  3. Department of Prosthodontics & Biomaterials, Center for Implantology, Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Stefan Wolfart & Sven Reich

Authors
  1. Tim Joda
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  2. Stefan Wolfart
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  3. Sven Reich
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  4. Nicola U. Zitzmann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tim Joda.

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Conflict of Interest

Stefan Wolfart reports grants, personal fees, and non-financial support from Camlog Foundation, personal fees and non-financial support from Camlog, grants, personal fees, and non-financial support from Straumann, personal fees and non-financial support from ITI (International Team for Implantology), grants and non-financial support from Ivoclar Vivadent, grants from 3M Espe, outside the submitted work. Sven Reich reports grants, personal fees, and non-financial support from 3M Oral Care, Dentsply Sirona, and Ivoclar Vivadent, and personal fees and non-financial from Camlog, Camlog foundation, Digital Dental Academy, pluradent, Straumann and public scientific organizations (e.g.: DGCZ, DGI). The other authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Digital and Esthetic Dentistry

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Joda, T., Wolfart, S., Reich, S. et al. Virtual Dental Patient: How Long Until It’s Here?. Curr Oral Health Rep 5, 116–120 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40496-018-0178-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40496-018-0178-y

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