Across the globe, the need for predictable, long term restorative solutions is surging. A 2021 study Burden of severe periodontitis and edentulism in 2021, with projections up to 2050: The Global Burden of Disease 2021 study - Gustavo G Nascimento, Silas Alves-Costa, Mario Romandini reported that 353 million people were already living with edentulism, and more than one billion were suffering from severe periodontitis.
Projections indicate these numbers will climb to 660 million edentulous patients and 1.5 billion with severe periodontitis by 2050 - nearly one fifth of them in China alone.
For many of these patients, the full arch implant-based treatment concept has become one of the most reliable paths to rehabilitation. Introduced in the 1990s by Dr. Paulo Malo with support from Nobel Biocare, a full arch implant-based restoration was once considered a highly specialized procedure.
Today, however, new digital innovations from companies like Straumann, TruAbutment and 3Shape are helping bring the treatment into the mainstream.
But adoption hasn’t been without challenges.
Dr. Paulics and 3Shape have created a free and easy email course to help you learn the TruAbutment ioConnect workflow.
The course, over three emails, includes videos demonstrating the workflow steps.
While intraoral scanners have long produced excellent results for single implants, full arch implant impressions with scan bodies have proved challenging.
Capturing four or more implant positions across an arch introduces accuracy issues, including:
Research shows that while the first scan body is typically captured at around 27 micrometers of accuracy, which is comparable to photogrammetry and conventional impressions, the accuracy can fall to an unacceptable 324 micrometers by the time we scan the opposite side of the arch.
A handful of highly experienced digital scanning experts manage to compensate for this. But for most clinicians, reliability simply hasn’t been there - until now.
To overcome the traditional limitations of full arch scanning, several implant companies introduced scan flag solutions designed to add geometry, stabilize reference points, and dramatically improve scan accuracy.
These include:
Apollo smart flags
Nexus Scan Ladder
Straumann EXACT
A fence style reference system
TruAbutment ioConnect
Using elongated, horizontally oriented scan flags
3Shape has worked with both Straumann and TruAbutment to deliver fully integrated TRIOS workflows using each company’s proprietary scan flags. Both the TRIOS TruAbutment ioConnect and Straumann EXACT integrated workflows are available.
The ioConnect system takes a unique approach by using flat, horizontally aligned scan bodies that reduce the distance between implant reference points—significantly increasing scan accuracy.
Here’s how it works at a high level:
DEEP DIVE
COLLAPSE
To perform full arch workflows using ioConnect with TRIOS, you’ll need:
Hardware
Software
COLLAPSE
I have created a free three email minicourse that walks you step-by-step through the entire ioConnect workflow.
The course includes: