Abstract
Due to recent advances in dentistry aiming at improvement of dentoskeletal deformities diagnosis techniques, and ideal management plans that suits patients, it became crucial to obtain as much data as possible from a wide variety of sources. These include cephalograms, dental casts, photographs, records of face bow, complete physical examination, and casts mobility measurement, based on surgical simulation. Moreover, a thorough analysis of the normal method in dental surgeries has concluded that it basically lacks accuracy, has certain biases, and has limited control over movements, especially in translation and rotation.
However, the introduction of three-dimensional imaging techniques has led to significant improvements in this field. Currently, surgeons can get data that is more accurate than using only lateral cephalogram. This significantly improved pre-surgical planning and thus post-surgical outcomes. Recently, several software has been used to provide accurate pre-surgical three-dimensional planning, to allow dentists and surgeons to create a simulation of the surgery and predict outcomes in tissues.
Technicians were recently able to combine three-dimensional CT techniques with laser dentition models to create a digital craniomaxillofacial-dentition model. The use of this model lead to significant improvement in post-surgical outcomes regarding facial symmetry. In fact, the average difference between the pre-surgical design, and the actual post-surgical outcomes is less than two mm. therefore, this digital craniomaxillofacial-dentition model has allowed accurate planning, stimulation of the surgery, and prediction of post-surgical outcomes, leading to significant improvements in orthognathic surgery accuracy, and facial symmetry recovery.