A comparative study of the strength of aluminous porcelain and all-ceramic crowns

This study compared the breaking strengths of all-ceramic crowns constructed with aluminous porcelain, the Cerestore system, and the Dicor system on an anterior tooth preparation. Fifteen crowns from each group were constructed to comparable dimensions on dies from the same master die. Ten crowns from the same group were cemented on the master die and loaded until catastrophic failure. Five crowns from each group were embedded and sectioned to examine internal adaptation. No significant difference was found between the load necessary to produce failure in the aluminous porcelain and Dicor crowns and the load needed to initiate crack formation in the Cerestore crowns. However, seven of the 10 Cerestore crowns showed a two-phase failure pattern; the difference between crack initiation and catastrophic failure was significant. Within the limitation of this study, neither the Cerestore (high alumina core) nor the Dicor (castable glass-ceramic) produced an all-ceramic crown superior to the current aluminous porcelain crown.