Biologic width and crown lengthening: case reports and review

The biologic width includes both the connective tissue attachment and the junctional epithelium and has a mean dimension of approximately 2 mm. Invading the biologic width with a restoration can result in localized crestal bone loss, gingival recession, localized gingival hyperplasia, or a combination of these three. When restoring teeth that have subgingival caries or fractures below the gingival attachment, a clinical crown-lengthening procedure is needed to establish the biologic width. This article presents three case reports that utilized crown-lengthening procedures.