Background: Location of hinge axis and its precise transfer to the articulator where the occlusal rehabilitation is planned is a vital therapeutic protocol in fixed prosthodontics. However, there is an uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of the arbitrary or true hinge axis transfer influencing the therapeutic outcome of occlusal harmony provided by restorations, whichneeds to be investigated further in detail. Aim: To evaluate occlusal discrepancies arising after mounting with arbitrary and kinematic facebows in fixed restorations. Materials and methodology: An electronic search was initiated on the PubMed, Medline, Google Scholar data bases for articles discussing the above mentioned aim, listed in the databases till 31st December 2015. Suitable MeSH terms and key word search was initiated with Boolean operators and articles were selected. Data extraction was done from the articles satisfying the inclusion and exclusion criteria and subjected to statistical analysis. Results: The search methodology identified 13 studies out of which five studies fulfilled inclusion criteria and were included in this review. Comprehensive analysis after data extraction revealed significant heterogeneity among the included studies over the outcome variables and so a meta-analysis could not be performed. All the included studies favour the use of kinematic face bow transfer to minimize occlusal errors with a significant statistical difference (p<.05) over arbitrary facebow transfer. Conclusion: Kinematic face bow transfer is more effective than arbitrary face bow transfer in minimizing occlusal errors in fixed restorations.
