Reliability and properties of core materials for all-ceramic dental restorations

Various core materials have been used as all-ceramic dental restorations. Since many foreign zirconia product systems were introduced to the Japanese dental market in the past few years, the researches and the papers on zirconia for ceramic biomaterials have immediately drawn considerable attention. Recently, most of the manufactures supply zirconia blocks available to multi-unit posterior bridges using CAD/CAM, because zirconia has excellent mechanical properties comparable to metal, due to its microstructures. The properties of conventional zirconia were further improved by the composite in nano-scale such as zirconia/alumina nanocomposite (NANOZR). There are many interesting behaviors such as long-term stability related to low temperature degradation, effect of sandblasting and heat treatment on the microstructure and the strength, bonding to veneering porcelains, bonding to cement, visible light translucency related to esthetic restoration, X-ray opacity, biocompatibility, fracture load of clinical bridge as well as lifetime and clinical survival rates of the restoratives made with zirconia. From the recent material researches on zirconia not only in Japan but also in the world, this review takes into account these interesting properties of zirconia and reliability as core material for all-ceramic dental restorations. (C) 2008 Japanese Association for Dental Science. Published by Elsevier Ireland. All rights reserved.