Clinical performance and failures of zirconia-based fixed partial dentures: a review literature

Zirconia has been used in clinical dentistry for approximately a decade, and there have been several reports regarding the clinical performance and survival rates of zirconia-based restorations. The aim of this article was to review the literatures published from 2000 to 2010 regarding the clinical performance and the causes of failure of zirconia fixed partial dentures (FPDs).

An electronic search of English peer-reviewed dental literatures was performed through PubMed to obtain all the clinical studies focused on the performance of the zirconia FPDs. The electronic search was supplemented by manual searching through the references of the selected articles for possible inclusion of some articles. Randomized controlled clinical trials, longitudinal prospective and retrospective cohort studies were the focuses of this review. Articles that did not focus on the restoration of teeth using zirconia-based restorations were excluded from this review.

There have been three studies for the study of zirconia single crowns. The clinical outcome was satisfactory (acceptable) according to the CDA evaluation. There have been 14 studies for the study of zirconia FPDs. The survival rates of zirconia anterior and posterior FPDs ranged between 73.9% - 100% after 2 - 5 years. The causes of failure were veneer fracture, ceramic core fracture, abutment tooth fracture, secondary caries, and restoration dislodgment.

The overall performance of zirconia FPDs was satisfactory according to either USPHS criteria or CDA evaluations. Fracture resistance of core and veneering ceramics, bonding between core and veneering materials, and marginal discrepancy of zirconia-based restorations were discussed as the causes of failure. Because of its repeated occurrence in many studies, future researches are essentially required to clarify this problem and to reduce the fracture incident.