Trueness and precision of skin surface reproduction in digital workflows for facial prosthesis fabrication.

How much skin surface details of facial prostheses can be transferred throughout the digital production chain has not been quantified. The purpose of this in vitro study was to quantify the amount of skin surface details transferred from the prosthesis virtual design through the prototype printing with various additive manufacturing (AM) methods to the definitive silicone prosthesis with an indirect mold-making approach. Twelve test blocks with embossed wrinkles of 0.05 to 0.8 mm and 12 test blocks with applied earlobe skin structures were printed with stereolithography (SLA), direct light processing (DLP), and PolyJet methods (n=4). DLP and SLA prototype specimens were duplicated in wax. All specimens were then transferred into medical-grade silicone. Rz values of the wrinkle test blocks and the root mean square error (RMSE) of the earlobe test blocks were evaluated by laser topography to determine the trueness and precision of each stage. For the earlobe test blocks, the PolyJet method had superior trueness and precision of the final skin surface reproduction. The SLA method showed the poorest trueness, and the DLP method, the lowest precision. For the wrinkle test blocks, the PolyJet method had the best wrinkle profile reproduction level, followed by DLP and SLA. The indirect mold-making approach of facial prostheses manufacturing may be associated with 7% of skin surface profile loss with SLA, up to 20% with DLP, and no detail loss with PolyJet. Copyright © 2021 Editorial Council for the Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation

Alexey Unkovskiy, Sebastian Spintzyk, Tobias Kiemle, Ariadne Roehler, Fabian Huettig. Trueness and precision of skin surface reproduction in digital workflows for facial prosthesis fabrication. The Journal of prosthetic dentistry. 2023 Sep;130(3):402-413

Mesh Tags

Substances

PMID: 35256182

search → result