Intra-oral scanners will play a central role in digital dentistry in the near future. In this study the accuracy of three intra-oral scanners was compared. Materials and methods: A master model made of stone was fitted with three high precision manufactured PEEK cylinders and scanned with three intra-oral scanners: the CEREC (Sirona), the iTero (Cadent) and the Lava COS (3M). In software the digital files were imported and the distance between the centres of the cylinders and the angulation between the cylinders was assessed. These values were compared to the measurements made on a high accuracy 3D scan of the master model. Results: The distance errors were the smallest and most consistent for the Lava COS. The distance errors for the Cerec were the largest and least consistent. All the angulation errors were small. Conclusions: The Lava COS in combination with a high accuracy scanning protocol resulted in the smallest and most consistent errors of all three scanners tested when considering mean distance errors in full arch impressions both in absolute values and in consistency for both measured distances. For the mean angulation errors, the Lava COS had the smallest errors between cylinders 1-2 and the largest errors between cylinders 1-3, although the absolute difference with the smallest mean value (iTero) was very small (0,0529°). An expected increase in distance and/or angular errors over the length of the arch due to an accumulation of registration errors of the patched 3D surfaces could be observed in this study design, but the effects were statistically not significant.
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