RESUMO
Recent technologic advances allow models to be digitized, measured with software tools, stored electronically and retrieved with a computer. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity of computerized 2-D dolphin, 3-D laser scanning and manual methods of dental cast analysis. Twenty setups, simulating various types of malocclusions with different degrees of rotational and inclination of teeth, variety of spacing condition and curve of spee depths, were constructed. The values of tooth size were calculated from isolated artificial teeth out of setups [gold standard].These setups were duplicated using alginate, resulting in 20 corresponding dental stone models. Models were analyzed with digital calipers manually. The digital images were scanned and were analyzed with the Dolphin software. The analyses included mesiodistal dimension of isolated teeth and the measurement of Bolton scale. The results of the two mentioned methods were compared with the results of another study on these models by the means of three dimension scanning with gold standard. Inter Class Correlation were used to evaluate significance of differences. The difference of the varying methods were obtained through the Dolhberg formula. Results showed that there is the highest correlation between gold standard and manual methods, then between the gold standard and the two dimension methods, and finally, between gold standard and 3-D scanning. Statistically, methods had significant differences [P<0.05], which is clinicaly acceptable. In comparison to gold standard, manual method is still the most accurate for cast space analysis, but difference in overall size calculation is only 1.8 mm which seems clinically acceptable