Optical coherence tomography systems for evaluation of marginal and internal fit of ceramic reconstructions

Abstract

Purpose

To evaluate the marginal and internal fit of lithium disilicate and zirconia crowns using two optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems in order to estimate inter-system variations.

Materials and methods

Ten lithium disilicate and 10 cubic stabilized zirconia crowns were placed on prepared artificial teeth without cement. Marginal discrepancy and internal cement gap of the crowns were assessed on images obtained using a swept source OCT (SS-OCT) and a spectral domain OCT (SD-OCT). Medians and interquartile ranges were calculated for both materials and OCT systems. Thereafter, Wilcoxon signed rank test was carried out.

Results

No significant difference was found between the two OCT systems for absolute marginal discrepancy of either lithium disilicate (SS-OCT: 182 µm, SD-OCT: 214 µm; p = .922) or zirconia crowns (SS-OCT: 116 µm, SD-OCT: 121 µm; p = .232). Regarding internal cement gap, no significant difference was found between the two OCT systems for lithium disilicate crowns (SS-OCT: 128 µm, SD-OCT: 128 µm; p = .064). However, for zirconia crowns the SD-OCT showed significantly higher (p = .027) internal cement gap (92 µm) than the SS-OCT (68 µm). Moreover, it was not possible to assess the internal fit of zirconia crowns in 47% and 34% of the sites using SD-OCT and SS-OCT, respectively.

Conclusions

No significant difference was noted in the ability of SS-OCT and SD-OCT to assess the marginal and internal fit of lithium disilicate crowns, nor the marginal fit of zirconia crowns. On the contrary, drawbacks regarding the assessment of internal fit of zirconia crowns using both OCT systems were observed.

Keywords:

• Optical coherence tomography
• lithium disilicate
• zirconia

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge 3Shape A/S and the dental laboratory CC Dent for providing the ceramic crowns used in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the Innovation Fund Innovation Fund (Grand Solution project no. 13-2014-1), Danish Dental Association via Forsku/Calcin Fund.