In vitro performance of full-contour zirconia single crowns

Zirconia based restorations exhibited high failure rates due to veneering-porcelain fractures. Milling to full-contour might be an alternative approach for zirconia restorations. The aim of this study was to evaluate full-contour zirconia crowns in terms of light-transmission, contact wear (restoration and antagonist) and load-bearing capacity. Powder build-up veneered zirconia substructures and CAD/CAM-veneered zirconia substructures served as controls.

Four different kinds of crowns were fabricated on 12 metal dies: zirconia substructure with powder build-up porcelain (veneering technique), zirconia substructure with CAD/CAM generated veneering (sintering technique), full-contour zirconia glazed (glazed full-contour) and full-contour zirconia polished (polished full-contour). All crowns had the same dimensions. After light-transmission was measured the crowns were cemented on the corresponding metal dies. The specimens were loaded according to a special wear method in the chewing simulator (120,000 mechanical cycles, 5 kg load, 0.7 mm sliding movement, 320 thermocycles). Wear of the restoration and the antagonist were measured. All specimens were loaded until failure. One-way ANOVA and a LSD post-hoc test were used to compare data at a level of 5%.

Polished full-contour showed significantly higher light transmission than the other groups (p=0.003; ANOVA). Polished full-contour exhibited significantly less contact wear at the restoration (p=0.01; ANOVA) and higher contact wear at the antagonist (p=0.016; ANOVA) compared to the other groups. Glazed full-contour zirconia showed similar contact wear at the antagonist compared to veneering technique (p=0.513, post-hoc LSD). Crowns with conventional veneering showed significantly lower load-bearing capacity (p<0.001; ANOVA).

Milling zirconia to full-contour with glazed surface might be an alternative to traditionally veneered restorations.