Digital workflow for the intraoral removable prosthesis of head and neck cancer patients

OBJECTIVES Obturator prostheses and removable prostheses still represent a valid option in head and neck cancer patients. The aim of the present article is to briefly review the current literature about the use of a digital workflow in the intraoral prosthetic rehabilitation of head and neck cancer patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS The review included articles in En-glish published from January 2010 to December 2021. Articles re-garding patients who had under-gone head and neck cancer treatment and intraoral prosthetic rehabilitation by a CAD/CAM techniques in at least 1 of the prosthet- ic treatment stages (scanning, de-sign, and/or fabrication) were included. RESULTS Thirteen articles with 66 described patients met the inclusion criteria and were included. Three types of removable prosthetic treatments were reported: 47 maxillary obtu-rators, 18 provisional maxillary ob-turators, and 1 maxillary complete denture. As for 3-dimensional im-age capture, the most common method was intraoral scanner, followed by conventional CT scan. As for prosthetic procedures, all treatments incorporated at least a digital workflow in one of the stag-es, either in design or fabrication. Concerning the CAM phase, definitive cast printing was performed in 64 patients. Only 1 patient was rehabilitated by using a completely digital workflow. CONCLUSIONS A completely digital workflow was rarely used in the intraoral prosthetic rehabilitation of patients with head and neck cancer. Compared to a conventional impres-sion, intraoral digital scanning can save time and steps for dentists and technicians, thus avoiding in the dental office tray selection, material dispensing, material set-ting, material disinfection, and impression packaging and shipping. On the other hand, at the lab plas- ter, pouring, die cutting, trimming, articulation, and extraoral scanning are no longer necessary. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE The reduced laboratory working time, the avoidance of the risk of aspiration of impression materi-als, and the possibility of perform-ing an adequate digital impression in spite of the trismus are important advantages associated with the digital workflow.