During the latest 50 years, with a rapid development of dental materials, a lot of has changed in the fields of dental esthetics. Improvement of dental composites, bonding systems and development of new materials followed by computerized supporting systems has brought a new range of options when it comes to choosing the right dental and in the same way esthetic solution for your teeth.
For many years, metal-ceramic crowns were considered as a golden standard in dentistry. However, these prosthodontics solutions showed the lack of esthetic appearance. When we analyze the consistency of full thickness of these crowns, great portions belong to the metal core, and the other portion is made of ceramics. This means that really thin part of the entire crown is made of ceramics which leads to the lack of the translucency of metal-ceramic crowns. That is why the difference between the crown and natural tooth was so obvious. The next problem was related to the soft tissue around the crown i.e. gums or marginal gingiva. Over the time the metal of the crown usually appears and become visible under the gums as a “metal shadow”, giving the unnatural look to the entire restoration. Besides this, during the tooth preparation for the crown, thanks to the small lacerations of the gums, gum staining may occur as a result of metallic ions diffusion to the gums. This phenomenon is not related only to lack of esthetic with these restorations but also to the biocompatibility of the material, and in this case incompatibility. Biocompatibility is considered as one of the major characteristics when it comes to choosing the right the optimal material.
From the need to overcome named imperfections, development of new materials with improved characteristics was necessary. Therefore, full ceramic crowns appeared as an ideal solution for overcome esthetic and biological flaws of metal-ceramics.
In general, the advantages of full-ceramic crowns are related to better esthetics and biocompatibility. Since entire prosthodontics restoration is made of ceramic or combination of zirconia and ceramic, better translucency can be achieved and followed by more natural and lifelike look of the crown. The marginal gingiva creates better and more intimate contact to the ceramics compared to the metal alloy which made full-ceramic crowns more suitable especially in the esthetic zone. On the other hand, a problem with full-ceramic crowns was addressed to their mechanical characteristics: its brittle, flexural strength and fractural toughness. Ceramic is hard material but, in the beginning, its brittleness has often brought to a failure of these crowns due to cracks and consequential fractures. The introduction of zirconia among dental materials has revolutionized esthetic dentistry.