Surgical Guide Dental Resin - FormLabs

FormLabs Dental Resins are specialized materials for the dental field, where the use of this type of technology is increasingly present. The dental resins (biocompatible) allow models of crowns and bridges, surgical guides, splints and retainers to be made with incredible accuracy, with a maximum deviation of ±100 microns, and with very low material costs per element (1.4 - 3.3 ?), which amortizes the use of the printer with any of the dental resins in a few months.

Surgical Guide Resin is a Class I biocompatible transparent material, designed for 3D printing of surgical aid devices, such as surgical guides, drilling templates, drilling guides, etc.

Image 4: Surgical guides made with Surgical Guide resin. Source: FormLabs.

Surgical guides are prosthetic elements that allow implants to be placed according to a previous detailed study, and to do so carefully and precisely.

Surgical Guide resin has a relatively high elongation capacity, and maximum tensile strength to break to minimize brittleness and breakage observed in similar materials.

Compared to the Dental SG Resin, its predecessor, Surgical Guide resin offers greater flexural strength and flex modulus that exceed the requirements of the ISO standard. Thus, the Surgical Guide resin offers greater performance with the reliability necessary for the manufacture of aid elements in dental surgeries.

Image 5: Comparison of SG resin with Surgical Guide resin. Source: FormLabs.

Surgical Guide resin has exceeded the requirements for the following biocompatibility risks: Non-cytotoxic, non-irritating and non-sensitizing (EN-ISO 10993-5: 2009, ISO 10993-10: 2010 / (R) 2014, ISO 10993-10: 2010 / (R) 2014). And it has been developed and complies with the following ISO standards: EN ISO 13485: 2016, EN ISO 14971: 2012.

Surgical Guide resin has been developed specifically for Formlabs 3D printers, and has been rigorously tested with autoclaves, solvents, and implant systems. Thanks to its high resolution (100 and 50 microns) and its properties, this resin allows to obtain 100% personalized, precise, safe and low cost guides (1.8 € - 2.8 €) by means of 3D printing with SLA technology.
The process to follow to create a surgical guide with Surgiacal Guide resin is as follows:

1. Scaning: The anatomy of the patient's dentition must be digitally collected with an intraoral scanner, or an impression scanned with a desktop scanner and the anatomy of the patient's osteotomy collected with a CBCT or cone beam scanner.
2. Design: The scanned data must then be imported into the CAD software to plan the treatment and produce a guide. To ensure a strong and durable design, the following guidelines should be observed:
   

   	Minimun value	Maximun value
   Wall Thickness	2.0 mm	n/a
   Offset From Teeth	0.05 mm	0.07 mm
   Offset From Sleeve	0.0 mm	0.04 mm

3. 3D printing: At the end of the design process, the CAD file designed in the Formlabs print preparation software, PreForm, is imported for the print setup and sent to the Formlabs printer.
4. Preparation: After the guide is printed, it should be washed with IPA isopropyl alcohol, dried and cured. It is recommended to use the Form Wash machine and the Form Cure curing machine. The recommended cure parameters are as follows:
   

   Printer	Temperature	Post cure time
   Form 2	60 ºC	30 minutos
   Form 3B	70 ºC	30 minutos

5. Polished: For optimal results, support structures should be removed, remaining blemishes smoothed, and the surgical guide should be gently polished until its surface is shiny.
6. Finish: To ensure that the bits do not cut the 3D printed guide, the chosen surgical guide sleeves must be assembled. If the recommended design parameters are used, the surgical guide sleeves must snap into the guide.
7. Sterilization: Finally, the surgical guide must be sterilized with an autoclave. It should be noted that the autoclave cycle should not exceed 20 minutes at 134 ºC or 30 minutes at 121 ºC, since exceeding these limits may degrade the mechanical properties and precision of the surgical guide.

To ensure the biocompatibility of Surgical Guide resin, the use of dedicated tanks, build deck and finishing kits is required and should only be used with this and other biocompatible resins from Formlabs.

Much of the dental industry is already using 3D printing, through Form 2 or Form 3B and Dental Resins, to enhance their services more accurately, quickly and economically.