ABSTRACT
Objective@# To evaluate the effect of 3D-printed oval root canal preparation by using small field-of-view cone beam CT (CBCT) combined with computer-aided technologies.@*Methods@#An extracted tooth with a suitable single oval canal was selected by small field-of-view CBCT scanning. Three-dimensional (3D)-printed resin teeth were obtained based on the CBCT data after data conversion and processing. 50 general dentists were selected to prepare the oval root canal of the resin teeth with X-Gold rotary Ni-Ti instruments. Small field-of-view CBCT was applied to scan the oval root canals before and after preparation. Then, computer-aided technologies were used to calculate and compare these CBCT data, analyzing the effects of oval root canal cleaning as well as the root canal deviation by 3D reconstruction and rendering of the images.@*Results @#Among the 50 cases, the mean unprepared area of the oval root canal wall was（56.20 ± 11.91）% and the mean maximum deviation distance of the root canal was（0.140 ± 0.041）mm. There was no correlation between root canal cleanliness and deviation (r=0.18, P=0.212).@*Conclusion @# Combined with small field-of-view CBCT and computer-aided technology, we can effectively quantitatively evaluate the root canal preparation effect.