Purpose: The aim of this retrospective cohort study was to gather the outcomes of zirconia single crowns made by 16 members of the Italian Academy of Prosthetic Dentistry (AIOP) over a time period of up to 5 years.
Materials and methods: A total of 398 patients treated in private practices with 1,132 zirconia-based single-crown restorations made on natural teeth from January 2005 to July 2010 were included. Three hundred forty-three anterior restorations (30.3%) and 789 posterior crowns (69.7%) were made with 16 types of zirconia, using primarily chamfer or knife-edge tooth preparation, and examined according to the esthetic, functional, and biologic criteria. To evaluate the relationship of parafunction with mechanical failure, patients with clenching or bruxism were not excluded from the study group.
Results: The cumulative survival rate of all restorations was 98.1%, while the cumulative success rate was 94.3%. Functional criteria had the highest number of failures. The odds ratio (OR) for all restorations was calculated to clarify the relationship between patients who were subject/not subject to parafunctions and technical complications; the OR was 2.60. An association between parafunction and mechanical failure was found in patients with severe parafunction.
Conclusions: Porcelain-veneered zirconia single crowns with chamfer and knife-edge preparations showed good clinical results over a period of up to 5 years. Technical complications were few and were limited primarily to patients with parafunction.