Things To Know About Zirconia Dental Crowns

When it comes to restoring a damaged tooth, zirconia crowns are among the top choices for dentists throughout the world. This is because of the lifelike aesthetics and durability of zirconia. Since this is a relatively new material, many patients are curious regarding the composition and uses of zirconia crowns. This article explains everything you need to know about zirconia as a material for making dental crowns as well as its pros and cons.

What is Zirconia?

Zirconia is a powdered white metal oxide of zirconium, which belongs to the titanium family. Therefore, zirconia possesses properties similar to titanium alloys. Just like most other crown materials, zirconia is also a ceramic material. However, zirconia crowns can be preferred over other types of ceramics for use inside the oral cavity because of their durability, chemical inertness and safety.

What are the Benefits of Zirconia Crowns?

Zirconia Dentures

As discussed earlier, zirconia-based crowns possess several advantages of the current metal-ceramic or all-ceramic based crown materials, which make them one of the best choices for making dental crowns:

1. Aesthetics

The most often used material for crowns are metal-ceramic crowns, that usually have a dark grey metal collar, or in cases where high strength is needed, the crown may even be a visible metal colour. Zirconia, being naturally white, offers a natural and aesthetically pleasant look to the crowns and other prostheses prepared from it. This is why zirconia crowns are the material of choice among dentists and patients when aesthetics and superior strength are required, especially when restoring the back teeth.  Due to these features, teeth restored with zirconia crowns are virtually indistinguishable from the natural teeth.

2. Milled Zirconia Crowns

Perhaps, the biggest advantage of zirconia crowns is that they can be prepared using the 3D printing and milling technology, which offers several benefits over the dental crowns prepared conventionally in the dental laboratory:

3. Layering with Ceramics

Zirconia is naturally opaque. Teeth that have become darkened by trauma,  decay or after root canal treatment can be masked with zirconia to appear normal again after the crown. However, as it does not possess the translucency offered by ceramic crowns, zirconia crowns can be layered with translucent glass-ceramics to obtain the desired aesthetic outcome.

4. Strength

Zirconia is an extremely strong material and can withstand even the highest chewing forces generated inside the oral cavity. Unlike the metal-ceramic crowns, zirconia crowns are metal-free and do not require the placement of a metal layer beneath them.

5. Ease of Bonding

Zirconia crowns can be directly bonded to the natural tooth structure, thereby improving the retention and also making it a good choice in cases whereby the tooth is very broken down.

6. Natural Tooth Conservation

Due to the high inherent strength of zirconia crowns, they can be prepared in thinner sections in comparison to the conventional ceramic or metal-ceramic crowns. This is advantageous as less of the tooth needs to be removed to fit the crown in. More conservation of the tooth is better as there is more strength, and to reduce the risk of tooth sensitivity.

7. Safety

Zirconia crowns are biocompatible and completely safe for use inside the oral cavity.

The Other Side of the Picture

Dental tool with zircon dentures

Despite the numerous benefits of the zirconia crowns, there are some disadvantages associated with this material as well:

Zirconia Crowns at Dental Designs

At Dental Designs Clinic, we offer durable, aesthetically pleasant and natural-looking zirconia crowns to restore your teeth and to give you a charming and beautiful smile. With our technology, we are able to make these crowns with our in-house laboratory and can usually be issued on the same day.

Find Out More About Crowns Here!

References:

  1. High-strength Cad/cam-fabricated Veneering Material Sintered To Zirconia Copings - A New Fabrication Mode For All-ceramic Restorations
    Florian Beuer-Josef Schweiger-Marlis Eichberger-Heinrich Kappert-Wolfgang Gernet-Daniel Edelhoff - (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0109564108001486)
  2. Clinical Trials in Zirconia: a Systematic Review
    K. Lyons-M. Swain - (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2842.2010.02094.x)
  3. Zirconia Based Dental Ceramics: Structure, Mechanical Properties, Biocompatibility and Applications
    Chandkiram Gautam-Jarin Joyner-Amarendra Gautam-Jitendra Rao-Robert Vajtai - (https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2016/dt/c6dt03484e/unauth#!divAbstract)
  4. Restoring Primary Anterior Teeth: Updated For 2014
    Waggoner-William F. - (https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aapd/pd/2015/00000037/00000002/art00011)
  5. Bonding To Zirconia Ceramic: Adhesion Methods and Their Durability
    Matthias Kern-Stefan Wegner - (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0109564198000116)
  6. Long-term Resin Bond Strength To Zirconia Ceramic
    S Wegner-M Kern - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11317401)

Dental Crowns - What materials are there and what's best for you

Dental crowns are used to restore the function and aesthetics of teeth that have been heavily damaged and to protect them from further damage. When a tooth has decayed, a filling can be placed if it is small. However, if the decay is large, there might not be enough healthy tooth structure to place a regular filling. This is when a crown will be better to have enough strength to protect the remaining healthy tooth structure for the long term.

If your dentist has recommended restoring one of your teeth with a crown, then you might find it difficult to choose a suitable crown material that best fits your dental needs and budgetary constraints. This article will give you an idea of the different types of crown materials available for restoring damaged teeth.

What are Different Types of Crown Materials?

different types of dental crown

Crown materials can be broadly divided into two types; metal and non-metal

Metal Crowns

These dental crowns are prepared from different metal alloys.

Metal Free Crowns

These crowns are made from tooth-coloured materials to provide lifelike aesthetics.

Conventional Versus 3D CAD/CAM Crowns

Previously, dental crowns were prepared in the laboratory by using the impressions and study models of the prepared teeth. However, the prepared crowns were not always perfectly fitting, as there was still room for human error. For example, dimensional changes could take place in the impressions if they were kept in the open air for too long, or the distortion of the wax pattern of the prosthesis at any step. The impression quality also can vary depending on how deep the tooth margin or surface is. Also, problems could arise with the exact colour and shade matching of the crowns with the adjacent teeth, which meant multiple visits where the crown has to be sent back to be remade. Unfortunately, these drawbacks were more prevalent in traditional crowns as they required a higher number of steps for their fabrication.

We have the Perfect Solution!

Dentist

Keeping these problems in view, we have introduced digital dentistry in our practice to maximize the accuracy and esthetics of our prostheses. Our state of the art CEREC system allows us to fabricate all-porcelain and zirconia crowns which not only possess naturally pleasing esthetics, but they also possess superior function and durability than conventional crowns.

How is our Digital Technology Beneficial?

You might be wondering why our digital CEREC technology is better than the conventional system, and how will it benefit you? Continue reading to find out:

At Dental Designs Clinic, our priority is to offer the highest quality dental care with our experienced dental team, and our state-of-the-art dental diagnostic and therapeutic equipment. During the consultation appointment, we will be discussing treatment options as well as material choices that will best suit your needs. To find out more about crowns, visit our page on veneers and crowns.

References

  1. The Influence Of Different Core Material on the Fea-determined Stress Distribution in Dental Crowns
    Niek Jager-Marcel Kler-Jef Zel - (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0109564105001624)
  2. A New All-ceramic Crown: A Dense-sintered, High-purity Alumina Coping with Porcelain
    (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00016359309041149)
  3. In Vitro Fracture Strength Of Teeth Restored with Different All-ceramic Crown Systems
    Narong Potiket-Gerard Chiche-Israel Finger - (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022391304005840)
  4. Laboratory Simulation Of Y-tzp All-ceramic Crown Clinical Failures
    P.g. Coelho, E.a. Bonfante, N.r.f. Silva, E.d. Rekow, V.p. Thompson, 2009 P.G. Coelho-E.A. Bonfante-N.R.F. Silva-E.D. Rekow-V.P. Thompson - (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022034509333968)
  5. Fracture resistance and failure patterns of endodontically treated mandibular molars with and without glass fiber post in combination with a zirconia–ceramic crown
    (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdent.2008.03.014)
  6. Anterior Esthetic Rehabilitation on Teeth and Dental Implants Optimized with Procera® Technology: A Case Report
    Pascal Bonnard-Marc Hermans-Philippe Adriaenssens-Philippe Daelemans-Chantal Malevez - (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1708-8240.2001.tb00259.x)