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The computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) process chain for dental restorations starts with taking an impression of the clinical situation. For this purpose, either extraoral digitization of gypsum models or intraoral digitization can be used. Despite the increasing use of dental digitizing systems, there are only few studies on their accuracy. Objective This study compared the accuracy of various intraoral and extraoral digitizing systems for dental CAD/CAM technology.Material and Methods An experimental setup for three-dimensional analysis based on 2 prepared ceramic master dies and their corresponding virtual CAD-models was used to assess the accuracy of 10 extraoral and 4 intraoral optical non-contact dental digitizing systems. Depending on the clinical procedure, 10 optical measurements of either 10 duplicate gypsum dies (extraoral digitizing) or directly of the ceramic master dies (intraoral digitizing) were made and compared with the corresponding CAD-models.Results The digitizing systems showed differences in accuracy. However, all topical systems were well within the benchmark of ±20 µm. These results apply to single tooth measurements.Conclusions Study results are limited, since only single teeth were used for comparison. The different preparations represent various angles and steep and parallel opposing tooth surfaces (incisors). For most digitizing systems, the latter are generally the most difficult to capture. Using CAD/CAM technologies, the preparation angles should not be too steep to reduce digitizing errors. Older systems might be limited to a certain height or taper of the prepared tooth, whereas newer systems (extraoral as well as intraoral digitization) do not have these limitations.

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Within the limitations of this study, it would be correct to state that removable dental prostheses, given suitable pretreatment and follow-up regimes, can provide satisfactory solutions. Based on only one paper, they revealed acceptable results even over a very long observation period (25 years).

The clinically achievable accuracy can be described as sufficient for further prosthetic treatment, given the intrinsic and methodological tolerances, making prosthetic rehabilitation safe and predictable.

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