Development and Student Perception of Virtual Reality for Implant Surgery

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is well written and can be accepted for publication after improvement in references about digital dentistry, that can bring to strong interest in the development of new protocols in dentistry.

Indeed, digital dentistry, in COVID 19 pandemic, can be a new opportunity to develop innovative protocols also in the field of dental education, both undergraduate than postgraduate.

The article is very interesting and proposed a new tool for dental education, very important to create a better skill in implantology

Author Response

Reviewer 1:

The article is well written and can be accepted for publication after improvement in references about digital dentistry, that can bring to strong interest in the development of new protocols in dentistry.

Indeed, digital dentistry, in COVID 19 pandemic, can be a new opportunity to develop innovative protocols also in the field of dental education, both undergraduate than postgraduate.

The article is very interesting and proposed a new tool for dental education, very important to create a better skill in implantology

Response: thank you very much for your input. We modified one word in the conclusion to reduce the repetition of word “presented” (line 414).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript is of high quality of structure and clarity and of high interest to the readers.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

This manuscript is of high quality of structure and clarity and of high interest to the readers.

Response: thank you very much for your input. We have included all 4 references in the introduction (lines 32-35) and discussion (lines 340-342) as suggested by reviewer 1. We also modified one word in the conclusion to reduce the repetition of word “presented” (line 414).

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Although the idea is not entirely original the work was done with care and precision. I only suggest adding the following article to the references: Pagano S, Moretti M, Marsili R et al. Evaluation of the Accuracy of four Digital Methods by linear and volumetric Analysis of Dental Impressions. Materials (Basel). 2019 Jun 18; 12 (12): 1958. doi: 10.3390 /ma 12121958.

Author Response

3. Although the idea is not entirely original the work was done with care and precision. I only suggest adding the following article to the references: Pagano S, Moretti M, Marsili R et al. Evaluation of the Accuracy of four Digital Methods by linear and volumetric Analysis of Dental Impressions. Materials (Basel). 2019 Jun 18; 12 (12): 1958. doi: 10.3390 /ma 12121958.

Thank you for your input, we have added the suggested ref (ref #4)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript is informative but there are few points that needs further clarification 

Wit regards to  the physical characteristics of dental settings are not well explained.  For example  the weigh of the hand piece that operator feels and its traction force in operator’s hand as well as the range of available burs

How is the perception of tissue density? Can operator feel the different density of different anatomical structures when using rotary instruments? 

Authors have mentioned that participants were at a predoctoral Implant level but their overall clinical experience has not been mentioned as this can affect their perception of VR and and its practicality 

Authors need to elaborate more on current use of AI and VI in dentistry in more detail, the advantage and disadvantages of them as well as operator’s feedback.

All the images and graphs need to have a higher resolution.  Figure 8 and 9 are not readable 

Author Response

4. The manuscript is informative but there are few points that needs further clarification 

With regards to the physical characteristics of dental settings are not well explained.  For example the weigh of the hand piece that operator feels and its traction force in operator’s hand as well as the range of available burs. How is the perception of tissue density? Can operator feel the different density of different anatomical structures when using rotary instruments? 

Thank you for your input. For this project, we did not explain the physical characteristics of dental settings. This is because we used the Oculus Quest’s native controller. In the future development, we are planning to implement the haptic device (glove and touch) which will address all these questions that Oculus Quests could not, and fill this gap. We have modified the discussion: lines 397-405.

Authors have mentioned that participants were at a predoctoral Implant level but their overall clinical experience has not been mentioned as this can affect their perception of VR and its practicality 

Thank you for your input. We have modified lines 418-422

Authors need to elaborate more on current use of AI and VI in dentistry in more detail, the advantage and disadvantages of them as well as operator’s feedback.

Thank you for your input. We have modified the introduction following your recommendation (lines 62-66). We have included several new references (Refs #9-15); Regarding the advantage and disadvantage of vr, we have mentioned in the beginning of the discussion (lines 330-376). We did not talk about AR in the discussion since the topic of our paper is about VR, not AR.

All the images and graphs need to have a higher resolution.  Figure 8 and 9 are not readable 

Thank you for your input. The images submitted are high resolution.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Details of the kit (fig 2) Table ( fig 8) are still unreadable 

Author Response

Reviewer: Details of the kit (fig 2) Table ( fig 8) are still unreadable

Thank you for your input. I have modified Fig 2 and convert Fig 8 into Table 1. I have modified the text as well (line 257 and  261). In addition, I also convert Fig 9 intro Table 2.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf