A. P. DwisaptariniS. SuebnukarnP. RhienmoraP. HaddawyS. KoontongkaewUniversitas TrisaktiMahidol UniversityThammasat UniversityBangkok University2019-08-232019-08-232018-05-01Operative Dentistry. Vol.43, No.3 (2018), E110-E118036177342-s2.0-85049560965https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/45712© 2018 Operative Dentistry. This work presents the multilayered caries model with a visuo-Tactile virtual reality simulator and a randomized controlled trial protocol to determine the effectiveness of the simulator in training for minimally invasive caries removal. A three-dimensional, multilayered caries model was reconstructed from 10 micro-computed tomography (CT) images of deeply carious extracted human teeth before and after caries removal. The full grey scale 0-255 yielded a median grey scale value of 0-9, 10-18, 19-25, 26-52, and 53-80 regarding dental pulp, infected carious dentin, affected carious dentin, normal dentin, and normal enamel, respectively. The simulator was connected to two haptic devices for a handpiece and mouth mirror. The visuo-Tactile feedback during the operation varied depending on the grey scale. Sixth-year dental students underwent a pretraining assessment of caries removal on extracted teeth. The students were then ran-domly assigned to train on either the simulator (n=16) or conventional extracted teeth (n=16) for 3 days, after which the assessment was repeated. The posttraining performance of caries removal improved compared with pretraining in both groups (Wilcoxon, p<0.05). The equivalence test for proportional differences (two 1-sided t-Tests) with a 0.2 margin confirmed that the participants in both groups had identical posttraining performance scores (95% CI=0.92, 1; p=0.00). In conclusion, training on the micro-CT multilayered caries model with the visuo-Tactile virtual reality simulator and conventional extracted tooth had equivalent effects on improving performance of minimally invasive caries removal.Mahidol UniversityDentistryArticleSCOPUS10.2341/17-083-C