Robotic-Assisted Prosthetically Driven Planning and Immediate Placement of a Dental Implant.

Abstract

Dental implants arguably have become the preferred treatment modality for replacing missing teeth. The success of implants, however, depends on the precision of the implant placement to effectively support prosthetic restorations. With the evolution of static surgical guides, implant dentistry science has taken enormous strides toward ensuring accurate placement of dental implant fixtures, yet emerging digital protocols show the potential for dynamic real-time clinical support to the operator. Robotic-assisted dental surgery (RADS) is a novel form of dynamic surgical guidance that, in addition to visual navigation, offers haptic guidance for implant treatment planning, osteotomy preparation, and implant placement. This article discusses RADS and includes a case study that, to the authors' knowledge, is the first report of a robotic-assisted dental procedure with quantitative accuracy analysis for prosthetically driven planning and immediate placement of a single-tooth replacement.