Objectives: This study aimed to compare marginal accuracy of five contemporary all-ceramic crowns indicated for anterior restorations.
Materials and methods: A master die of maxillary central incisor was prepared for all-ceramic crown and duplicated to produce 50 replicas of epoxy resin material. Five ceramic materials were used to mill the crowns (n = 10). All crowns were manufactured following the same digital workflow; same master die, scanning unit and design software, and the recommended manufacturing protocol. Final seating of crown was secured by a small droplet of temporary cement on its incisal edge. Marginal accuracy was evaluated by scanning electronic microscope with a magnification of 300 × . Vertical marginal gap was measured for each crown at predefined four points.
Statistical analysis: One-way analysis of variance was used to test differences between groups and Tukey test was used for multiple comparisons between group combinations. A level of significance at 95% was set for all statistics.
Results: The highest mean marginal gap and mean maximum gap calculated were for the e.max CAD crowns (49.2 µm, 87.6 µm), while the lowest values were for the Cercon xt crowns (10.2 µm, 21.7 µm). The mean marginal gap and the mean maximum gap of the e.max CAD crowns were statistically significantly greater than those of all other groups (p < 0.05). However, the differences between all other combinations were insignificant (p > 0.05).
Conclusion: Marginal accuracy of lithium disilicate crowns is clinically acceptable. Zirconia and zirconia-reinforced lithium silicate materials can produce a greater level of marginal accuracy compared to lithium disilicate.
The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).