Investigators have analyzed the efficacy of dynamic navigation systems in improving dental implant placement.
Dental implants have recently become the preferred treatment for missing teeth as a result of their long-term survival, stability, and aesthetics. However, dental implants can still be susceptible to biological and mechanical complications. Because dynamic navigation offers real-time guidance for adjustments during surgery and more precise implant placement, this strategy has revolutionized dental implant treatment success and gained widespread acceptance.
Dynamic navigation is capable of tracking clinicians’ movements and patients’ jaw positions and displaying the information on a monitor alongside an image of bone volume created by cone-beam computed tomography in a preprocedural setting, potentially minimizing human error and overcoming challenges related to anatomical complexity. Clinicians can use this real-time data to align their placement with the most precise dental implant positioning. Despite the benefits of dynamic navigation, the availability of a number of systems may make selecting the most appropriate system difficult.
In a systematic review, published in the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, investigators used 7 in vitro models published between 2016 and 2024 involving 649 dental implants to evaluate the accuracy of 5 dynamic navigation systems: ImplaNav, Navident, Denacam, X-Guide, and DCARER.
The investigators identified mean coronal three-dimensional deviations ranging from 0.46 ± 0.20 mm to 1.58 ± 0.80 mm (maximum = 4.80 mm), apical three-dimensional deviations ranging from 0.48 ± 0.21 mm to 2.12 ± 0.94 mm, coronal depth deviations ranging from 0.26 ± 0.19 mm to 0.78 ± 0.49 mm, mean apical depth deviations ranging from 0.25 ± 0.19 mm to 0.88 ± 0.47 mm, coronal lateral deviations ranging from 0.33 ± 0.19 mm to 1.23 ± 0.81 mm, and mean apical lateral deviations ranging from 0.36 ± 0.20 mm to 1.23 ± 0.81 mm.
Further, angular deviations ranging from 1.01° ± 0.57° to 4.24° ± 2.52° (maximum = 10.70°). They found that tracking technology, calibration technique, and user experience all contributed to the accuracy of the systems. Although all five of the dynamic navigation systems demonstrated high accuracy, the X-Guide system was found to have the lowest errors.
The findings reinforce the understanding that dynamic navigation systems may enhance the precision of dental implant placement and reduce complications more common with freehand methods. Nonetheless, the technology may still be reliant on technical factors and comes with additional time requirements and costs.
No conflicts of interests were reported.
