Zirconia abutments and restorations: from laboratory to clinical investigations

In last years the use of zirconia in dentistry has become very popular. Unfortunately, the clinical indications for a dental use of zirconia are not completely clear yet, neither are their limitations. The objective of this review was to evaluate the basic science knowledge on zirconia and to discuss some aspects of the clinical behavior of zirconia-based restorations. In particular, one of the goals was highlighting the possible correlation between in vitro and in vivo studies. The definition of concepts like success, survival and failure was still debated and the correlation between in vitro results and predictability of clinical behavior was investigated.