Evaluation of Fracture Resistance in Endodontically Treated Teeth Through Four Restorative Methods: An in vitro Study

Evaluation of Retention and Fracture Strength of All Ceramic Crowns with Three Different Esthetic Cast Post-Core Systems

Purpose

This study investigates the fracture and retention strength of all-ceramic crowns with modified composite resin and ceramic cores compared to conventional casted post and core systems.

Materials and Methods

A prepared human central tooth was initially scanned to design and 3D print the post and core. Subsequently, 40 bovine teeth were adjusted to accommodate the fabricated post and cores. They were then divided into four groups of 10 each: group 1 comprised cast cores without cover (control group), group 2 involved cast cores reduced and replaced with IPS Empress material (IPS group), group 3 consisted of cast cores covered with opaque composite (composite group), and group 4 included cast cores covered with opaque ceramic (ceramic group). Zirconia crowns were cemented onto all samples. After an aging process, pull-off and fracture strength tests were conducted. Fracture strength was determined by applying a compressive force at an angle of 135° to the tooth's longitudinal axis until the fracture occurred. For retention strength assessment, a universal testing machine with a 10 mm/min crosshead speed was employed. The resulting data underwent statistical analysis utilizing two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Mann-Whitney U tests.

Results

The analysis revealed no significant difference in fracture strength among the groups (P-value = 0.997). However, the retention strength of the control and IPS groups was significantly higher than that of the other groups.

Conclusion

There were no discernible distinctions among the three study methods regarding fracture strength. Nonetheless, the retention strength of the IPS group resembled that of the control group, surpassing that of the composite and ceramic groups.

Analysis of fracture resistance of endodontically treated teeth restored with different post and core system of variable diameters: an in vitro study

The restoration of endodontically treated teeth requires the fabrication of a post and core; to provide retention and support for the final crowns. The purpose of this study was to evaluate fracture resistance of endodontically treated teeth restored with prefabricated zirconia post (CP), milled zirconia post (MZ), pressable ceramic post (PC) and cast metal post (Ni-Cr) of 1.4 and 1.7 mm diameter. 48 freshly extracted human maxillary central incisors were used for this study. The teeth were distributed in four groups of 12 teeth each. From each group, 6 teeth were selected for 1.4 mm diameter post and rest of the 6 teeth, is selected for 1.7 mm diameter post. All teeth were restored with metal crowns. Each specimen from the group was subjected to "load to fracture" in universal testing machine at 130° angle and the maximum load at failure was recorded. Statistically significant difference was found between the failure load of the groups studied. In group I (Ni-Cr)-1.4 mm diameter post and core recorded a maximum fracture load of 534.83 ± 1.28 N and 1.7 mm diameter post and core showed 294.33 ± 1.02 N. In group II (PC)-1.4 mm diameter post and core recorded a maximum fracture load of 205.33 ± 1.61 N and 1.7 mm post and core showed 375.00 ± 1.57 N. In group III (CP)-1.4 mm diameter post and cores recorded a maximum fracture load of 313.00 ± 0.73 N and 1.7 mm post and core showed 638.67 ± 0.81 N. In group IV (MZ)-1.4 mm diameter post and cores recorded a maximum fracture load of 312.00 ± 0.86 N and 1.7 mm post and core showed 415.00 ± 0.89 N. Prefabricated zirconia post (1.7 mm) with pressable ceramic core (Cosmo post)-exhibited higher fracture resistance. Milled zirconia and prefabricated zirconia post-showed same value with 1.4 mm diameter post. Pressable ceramic post and core showed satisfactory result with 1.7 mm post, but showed lesser values with 1.4 mm diameter post.