Clinical experience, misunderstood concepts and frequently asked questions. Notes from many years of practice.
Replacing an old crown or veneer means removing it, checking for decay and making a new one; a dark line at the gumline, chipping or movement signal it.
A loose denture is usually a bone problem: the ridge loses 29 to 63 percent of its width within six months of extraction. A reline, remake or implants fix it.
A zirconium crown is milled from zirconium dioxide with no metal core; monolithic designs chipped less than porcelain-veneered ones across 6,370 restorations.
Creams, powders and strips are not interchangeable, and the evidence has a ceiling: a systematic review of 13 randomised trials with 516 participants found adhesives significantly improve retention, stability and masticatory performance, but rated the certainty of that evidence only low to moderate.
A crown on a front tooth is a different decision from one at the back, and the data support anterior use: five-year survival was 96.8% for monolithic densely-sintered zirconia and 97.3% for veneered zirconia across a meta-analysis of 64 studies covering 8,051 all-ceramic crowns. Translucency, thickness and the trade-off.
A dental crown caps the whole tooth; five-year survival runs from 96.8% (monolithic zirconia) to 98.5% (lithium disilicate) in a 64-study meta-analysis.
