A systematic review on patient perceptions and clinician-reported outcomes when comparing digital and analog workflows for complete dentures.

Purpose: To compare digitally fabricated complete dentures to conventionally fabricated dentures using patient- and clinician-reported outcome measures.

Methods: This review was structured according to PRISMA guidelines with the protocol registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD42024526069). An electronic search of the databases with a defined search strategy was completed within PubMed/MEDLINE and Web of Science from January 2000 to March 2024. Grey literature and article references were searched. Articles were screened by title and abstract, and the remaining articles were screened by full-text review. Articles accepted for inclusion were subjected to a risk-of-bias assessment using Cochrane Collaboration tools (RoB 2 and ROBINS-I).

Results: From an initial pool of 704 articles, 15 studies met the selection criteria, of which the majority were published within the past 3 years. Within the included studies, there was inconsistency in the assessment methods of patient- and clinician-reported outcomes, making it challenging to draw definitive conclusions. Generally, digital dentures had superior cost-effectiveness and prosthesis fabrication time. Patient satisfaction and denture quality were not consistently improved with digital technology.

Conclusions: Studies showed indications of patient satisfaction with digital and conventional dentures. Digital technology may enhance clinical workflows. A trend emerged that milled dentures performed better than printed dentures. Clinicians adopting digital technology into removable prosthodontics may have a learning curve to overcome, and they should consider the patient-clinician relationship in addition to clinical outcomes to achieve patient satisfaction. Additional studies with standardized tools for assessing patient satisfaction are required to enable meaningful comparisons between digital and conventional workflows.