Comparison between conventional and digital impression techniques in prosthetic dentistry: a literature review

INTRODUCTION: In modern prosthetic dentistry, there are mainly two approaches when manufacturing any prosthetic restoration: conventional and digital. In these approaches, the methods for reproducing the prosthetic field can be divided into: conventional impression methods, digital impression methods, and combined impression methods. AIM: The aim of the present literature review is to identify the advantages and disadvantages of taking a digital impression over conventional impression, and to determine whether the digital impression is as accurate as a conventional one. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 209 articles were analyzed. The electronic databases of ResearchGate, Embase, Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scopus were used. The search was limited to entire articles written in English and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. RESULTS: The studied articles were published in the period from 1961 to 2019 and over 60% of them were in the last 10 years. Among these studies, 10 are previous literature reviews, 85 are in vivo clinical trials, 6 are randomized controlled/crossover studies, 11 are controlled comparative studies, 7 are clinical case reports, and 90 are in vitro comparative studies. CONCLUSION: The present study has its limitations due to the fact that it is a literature review. However, we can conclude that the digital impression technique has a number of advantages over the conventional impression technique, one of the most important of which is the reduced patient discomfort.