Evaluation of Retention and Oral Health-Related Quality of Life for Completely Edentulous Subjects Wearing Heat-Cured, 3D-Printed, and Injection-Molded Polyamide Complete Dentures: Randomized Crossover Clinical Trial

TL;DR

This study compared how well different types of dentures stay in place and affect quality of life for people without teeth, finding that polyamide dentures performed best.

Contribution

The study provides a direct comparison of retention and quality of life outcomes for three denture manufacturing methods in a randomized crossover trial.

Findings

Polyamide dentures showed significantly higher retention forces than heat-cured and 3D-printed dentures.

Polyamide dentures improved oral health-related quality of life more than the other two types, except for social disability.

Heat-cured and 3D-printed dentures showed no significant differences in retention or quality of life.

Abstract

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the retentive forces and oral health-related quality of life of completely edentulous subjects wearing heat-cured, 3D-printed, and polyamide complete denture (CD) bases at different intervals. Subjects and Methods: For this crossover study, 45 CDs were constructed for 15 completely edentulous male subjects, and subjects were randomly allocated to 3 equal groups (n = 5/group, 3 CDs/subject). Each subject was randomized to receive one manufactured CD—either heat-cured, polyamide, or 3D-printed. After 3 months, subjects crossed over to the other set, with 4 weeks’ rest between each CD. The retentive force (primary outcome) was measured for each maxillary CD base at baseline, after the first and third months; however, the oral health-related quality of life (second outcome) was evaluated for each CD after the first and third months using the oral health impact profile in the completely edentulous patient (OHIP-EDENT) questionnaire. Results: There were significant differences in retention forces between the polyamide CD and the other two CDs (p < 0.05); however, no significant difference was observed between the heat-cured and 3D-printed CDs at different intervals (p > 0.05). After 3 months of follow-up, significant differences in oral health-related quality of life were observed between polyamide and both 3D-printed and heat-cured CDs (p < 0.05). Additionally, the comparison between heat-cured and 3D-printed CDs revealed no significant variation in the overall OHIP-EDENT scores (p > 0.05). Conclusions: The retention of polyamide bases was higher than that of heat-cured and 3D-printed CDs. Additionally, oral health-related quality of life with polyamide dentures was superior to that of 3D-printed and heat-cured CDs across all OHIP-EDENT measures, except for social disability. Both 3D-printed and heat-cured CD bases provide retention and patient satisfaction within acceptable clinical measures.

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