ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Recently implant surgical guides were used for accurate and atraumatic operation. In this study, the accuracy of two different types of surgical guides, positioning device fabricated and stereolithography fabricated surgical guides, were evaluated in four different types of tooth loss models. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Surgical guides were fabricated with stereolithography and positioning device respectively. Implants were placed on 40 models using the two different types of surgical guides. The fitness of the surgical guides was evaluated by measuring the gap between the surgical guide and the model. The accuracy of surgical guide was evaluated on a pre- and post-surgical CT image fusion. RESULTS: The gap between the surgical guide and the model was 1.4 +/- 0.3 mm and 0.4 +/- 0.3 mm for the stereolithography and positioning device surgical guide, respectively. The stereolithography showed mesiodistal angular deviation of 3.9 +/- 1.6degrees, buccolingual angular deviation of 2.7 +/- 1.5degrees and vertical deviation of 1.9 +/- 0.9 mm, whereas the positioning device showed mesiodistal angular deviation of 0.7 +/- 0.3degrees, buccolingual angular deviation of 0.3 +/- 0.2degrees and vertical deviation of 0.4 +/- 0.2 mm. The differences were statistically significant between the two groups (P<.05). CONCLUSION: The laboratory fabricated surgical guides using a positioning device allow implant placement more accurately than the stereolithography surgical guides in dental clinic.