Pull-Off Forces on Implant-Supported Single Restorations by Sticky Food: An In Vitro Study

To investigate the pull-off forces on implant-supported restorations caused by sticky food, to understand how much retention force cemented restorations must have to withstand chewing forces without unintentional retention loss. The influence of food type, restoration design, and surface treatment were investigated.

Monolithic implant-supported CAD/CAM zirconia crowns were fabricated and divided into groups according to their design: no (NC), flat (FC) and high cusps (HC) and subdivided according to surface roughness: rough (r) and smooth (s) (n = 10/group). NC represented the control group. The crowns were fixed in a universal testing machine opposite to each other. Four sticky foods (caramel, fruit jelly, candy strips and licorice) and a resin crown remover were tested. These were heated (36.4°C), placed between the crowns and compressed, then tensile strength tests were performed. The maximum pull-off force was recorded (Newton [N]). Statistical analysis was performed using 3-way ANOVA.

The highest mean pull-off force among food samples was with caramel_HC_r (12.09 ± 1.26 N), whereas the lowest was with licorice_FC_s (3.21 ± 0.15 N). For the resin crown remover, a mean pull-off force of 55.41 ± 3.87 N was measured in the HC_r group. Both food type and crown design showed a significant influence on pull-off force (p < 0.001), whereas no significant effect was reported with different surface roughnesses (p = 0.344).

This study reported pull-off forces of up to 20 N between all-ceramic restorations caused by sticky food. The clinical implication of these findings is that a cemented implant-restoration must have a minimum retention force of 20 N to withstand unintentional displacement during function.