Accuracy and safety of real-time navigation during insertion of temporary anchorage devices - A randomized clinical trial.

Background/purpose: Temporary anchorage device (TAD) is one of the applications of dental implants that facilitate orthodontic treatment. However, there are possible complications in TAD surgery with the freehand technique. Navigation has been used in dental implantation with acceptable results. There has been no published study on the use of real-time navigation for TAD insertion. Materials and methods: This was a split-mouth design randomized clinical trial in which the control group used a surgical guide (N = 16) for TAD insertion surgery and the experimental group used navigation for surgery (N = 16). We also performed a negative control by retrospective database survey to evaluate the freehand technique (N = 29). By comparing the platform center deviation and angular deviation of the control group, experimental group, and negative control, we can draw conclusions about the accuracy and safety of TAD insertion surgery using each method. Results: The platform center deviation in the surgical guide group and the navigation group showed a statistical difference ( Conclusion: The clinical use of real-time navigation in the insertion of TAD offers no more significant advantages than the freehand technique in terms of position and angular control. No immediate complications requiring implant removal occurred in this study. The combined technique has shown a trend in accuracy and safety, but a larger number of samples are still needed for statistical analysis to draw a definitive conclusion.