Digital
3D
Assessment of Soap‐Carved Tooth Morphology in Vietnamese First‐Year Dental Students: A Cross‐Sectional Study
Thi Khanh Ly Nguyen, Thi Thu Huong Nguyen, Viet Anh Nguyen ABSTRACT
Objectives
To evaluate the reliability and educational applicability of a digital three‐dimensional surface‐deviation workflow for assessing soap‐carved tooth morphology in first‐year dental students.
Materials and Methods
Ninety‐eight students completed the dental anatomy module. After written research consent and specimen eligibility screening, 41 students with complete evaluable sets of eight right‐side tooth carvings were included (328 student‐tooth models). Instructor‐carved teeth served as reference models. Models were scanned with a Medit i700 and analysed in Medit Design. The primary outcome was root mean square deviation (RMS); secondary outcomes were percentages of surface area within 0.3–0.7 mm tolerance thresholds. Rater 1 repeated measurements after 2 weeks; Rater 2 independently measured the dataset once. Reliability was evaluated overall and by tooth type.
Results
Pooled RMS intra‐rater and inter‐rater ICCs were 0.866 and 0.860, respectively. Tooth‐stratified RMS ICCs ranged from 0.646 to 0.938 for intra‐rater and 0.643 to 0.925 for inter‐rater agreement. Overall mean RMS was 0.848 ± 0.365 mm. Mandibular central incisors showed the lowest mean RMS (0.553 ± 0.276 mm), whereas maxillary first molars showed the highest (1.357 ± 0.358 mm). At 0.5 mm, the overall mean surface within tolerance was 64.8%.
Conclusion
Digital surface‐deviation analysis provided reproducible quantitative feedback overall, although reliability varied by tooth type. RMS and tolerance‐based metrics can complement faculty judgement in manual tooth‐morphology training but should not be interpreted as standalone grades.