Dental crowns are made of what type of material?
A variety of materials can be used to make dental crowns, but which is the best? Your dentist may utilize a particular material, but they will almost never discuss it with you first. Here's a guide to dental crowns so you can have a thorough discussion with your dentist and be confident in your choice.
When selecting a material for dental crowns, what factors are taken into account?
The following are the three most important aspects to consider:
Strength of the Crown
This is crucial if you want your crowns to survive a long time - ideally, they should last at least ten years. You should also keep in mind that the tougher the material, the thinner the crown can be. What is the significance of this? So, before we put the crown on the tooth, we need to prepare it. We accomplish this by gently grinding the tooth away so that the crown can fit over it.
Crown Aesthetics
The goal is to make the crown seem as good as possible, and the various materials will have varying optical qualities.
The Crown Is Properly Fitted
Most materials will fit well, but some will fit better than others. We employ digital scanners in all of our offices, ensuring that the fit is always precise.
The Various Crown Materials
The following are the various crown materials available:
Zirconium Crowns
Zirconia is a relatively recent substance that has had a significant impact in the field of dentistry. It's made of a super-strong white ceramic substance. It has a strength rating of around 1200MPa, making it significantly more durable than typical crowns. It can be made thinner, allowing more tooth structure to be saved. The main downside of zirconia is that it might appear opaque at times. It's okay for back teeth, but you'll want a greater level of aesthetics for front teeth. Natural teeth are slightly translucent, allowing light to pass through to some extent. We sometimes construct the interior fitting surface of the crown (the core) out of zirconia and then overlay it with emax ceramic to counteract this disadvantage. This enables us to blend emax ceramic's exceptional looks with zirconia's strength.
Another downside of zirconia is that its bond strength is poor, necessitating the use of a traditional crown preparation. Back teeth are usually made of zirconia, and front tooth cores are frequently made of it. It's also common if you're getting a new crown.
E-Max Crowns
Traditional ceramic has the disadvantage of looking fantastic but being extremely fragile. The material would have to be thick to be robust, and it couldn't be used on surfaces that would be subjected to a lot of stress, such as the biting surfaces of the back teeth. When Emax was released, it altered that - the material is a perfect combination of strength and elegance. This means that it can be used for rear teeth as well as very thin parts of veneers. You may make it as thin as 0.3mm. When you compare this to the 1.5-2mm of space necessary for an old-school PFM, the amount of tooth structure saved is amazing. It's a mystery why dentists still utilize old-school techniques, and most of the time it's because they lack the advanced information that our dentists have.
Another advantage of emax is that it adheres extremely well to tooth structure, allowing you to create onlays and veneers with it. This means we can conduct minimally invasive dentistry on your teeth, which is far better for them.
Another advantage is that emax can be used to make almost anything, including veneers, crowns, implant restorations, and so on, so if you're performing very high-end work and repairing the entire smile, you can use the same material. Keeping the material the same ensures that all of the teeth have the same optical qualities, resulting in a magnificent final product. When two different materials are placed adjacent to each other, they always appear to be slightly different.
PFM (Porcelain Fused Metal) Crowns
As already said, old school ceramic was not very durable. You'd have to create the inner core out of metal and then cover it with porcelain if you wanted a white crown. This meant that each material had a minimum thickness in order to be sturdy, resulting in a total crown thickness of 1.5-2mm. This invariably results in the loss of a significant amount of tooth structure.
The aesthetics are never as excellent as they could be, even though the crowns are tooth colored. This is because light passes through it and bounces back as soon as it strikes the metal surface. Teeth that are dull and opaque are common. Natural teeth allow light to show through nicely, giving them depth and beauty.
Metal Crowns
Metals of various types can be used to make these. Gold, or a semi-precious metal, is usually the best option. The most evident issue with metal crowns is that they are unsightly because of their color! As a result, dentists rarely utilize them nowadays.
As you can see, there are many different types of crowns to choose from, and it's critical to find a dentist that understands the benefits and drawbacks. Please contact our friendly team on +90 543 136 5090 if you'd like to discuss this more.