Dental Simulator for Endodontic Access Cavity Preparation

The preparation of teeth is a biomechanical treatment which aims to remove tissues contaminated by decay or that have any other type of lesion that attacks the hard parts of a tooth (enamel or dentin) so that the remaining tooth structure is able to receive a filling material. Usually the removal of the tissues is made using cutting rotary tools equipped with drill bits of different formats. During the training process the odontology students usually use extracted natural teeth or artificial teeth made of resin, inserted on a mannequin or manipulated in the hands of the student. Some problems rise in the use of such teeth, for example, obtaining natural teeth comes up against with ethical problems due to the small amount of Human Teeth Banks. In case of artificial teeth, the material that composes the tooth has uniform rigidity, and then is impossible for the student to identify the layers of enamel, dentin and pulp that form the tooth through the tactile sensation to use the correct force to remove each material. Moreover, in both types of teeth it is not possible to place the student in specific situations because the available teeth may not have all important features, such as teeth with internal calcification, multiple roots or irregular shaping.

In this demonstration we present a VR-based simulator focused on dentistry training, that aims to increase the students skills in access cavity preparation task. The main reasons to use the simulator are the possibility of repeating the tasks and simulation of teeth problems that rarely can be treated during the conventional training.