Marginal and internal fit of all‐ceramic CAD/CAM crown‐copings on chamfer preparations

Evaluation of the marginal and internal fit of all-ceramic molar crown-copings hypothesizing that Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) fabrication shows the same accuracy of fit as conventional techniques. A set of six individual crown preparations was duplicated 12 times yielding 72 plaster dies. Slip-cast (In-Ceram Zirconia), heat-pressing (Empress II) and CAD/CAM crown-copings (Cerec inLab, DCS, Decim and Procera) were seated on 12 dies each. Marginal and internal gap width was measured in the SEM at 120x magnification. Marginal gap of slip-cast (25 +/- 18 microm) was significantly (P 0.05) from slip-cast (25 +/- 18 microm) but were smaller (P 0.05) from any of the others. The internal mid-orobuccal gap width of Procera (136 +/- 68 microm) was larger (P 0.05) from Decim, Procera and slip-cast. Internal mesiodistal gap width was similar. The fit of conventional and CAD/CAM all-ceramic molar crown-copings covered the same range of gap width confirming the assumed hypothesis.