Biomechanical Testing of Two-Unit Bridges and a Comparison of Replacement Retention Depending on a Cementation Medium, Replacement Position, and Gap Size

Dental replacements are placed between the abutment teeth. The exceptions are two-unit bridges, as they are supported by a single tooth prepared only on one side of the missing tooth. The presented study deals with an analysis of a pressure force action on two-unit bridges placed in the frontal part (20 samples), where the pressure action is lower, and in the distal part (20 samples), where the pressure action is higher. A CAD program by 3Shape was used for digital designing with two different gap settings, 10 mu m (20 samples) and 30 mu m (20 samples). Two-unit bridges were attached to the prepared tooth using two types of dental cement (20/20 samples), which were selected for their physical and bioactive properties. All two-unit bridges (a total of 80 samples) were fabricated from CoCr alloys on Mlab cusing R by applying the Selective Laser Melting (SLM) technology. Mechanical testing was performed using the Inspekt5 table blue. The obtained data were used to verify the hypotheses-a difference between both types of cement (A not equal B), a difference between the frontal and distal two-unit bridges (F not equal D) and a difference between the gap sizes (10 not equal 30). To confirm the given theories, data were statistically evaluated using the F-test and subsequent t-tests. The resulting p-value was compared with the level of significance (alpha = 0.05). A statistical evaluation revealed a significant difference between the compared groups; however, no explicit correlation between the individual groups of specimens was identified.