Surveying in removable partial dentures: from analog to digital

Abstract

Digital workflow in dentistry is becoming increasingly present and accessible to professionals and patients. In removable partial dentures, planning requires an essential step: the surveying process. This step transfers information from the patient's mouth to the model and identifies the need for oral adjustments to establish guiding planes, insertion paths, stability, prosthetic retention, and patient comfort. With current technology, this step can now be performed digitally, yielding promising results and high precision compared to conventional methods. This new approach to planning removable partial dentures reduces clinical time, enhances patient comfort, and results in prostheses with excellent adaptation, making it a valuable alternative for patients who cannot undergo other types of rehabilitative treatments. Therefore, this study aims to describe two different methods for performing this step—digital and analog (conventional)—highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. To achieve this, a literature review was conducted by searching scientific databases for articles and academic studies, as well as consulting physical and digital books, with the goal of analyzing and comparing them to gather relevant information for this research.

Keywords: digital workflow; surveying; removable partial denture.