Ceramic endocrowns

Ceramic endocrowns make devitalized teeth last much longer

Another common dental procedure that has been radically improved since CEREC technology became available is a treatment of devitalized teeth, i.e. dead teeth. Teeth that are affected by infection of a soft tissue in the center of the tooth (nerve and blood vessels) are devitalized by removing a soft tissue, and the inside of the tooth is being cleaned of all germs to protect the rest of the teeth, and then the space is being filled.

Dead teeth i.e. teeth with extracted nerves tend to have large defects of tooth substance because there was a significant damage and there had to be made an access space for the process of extracting nerve. Besides the fact that a significant part of the tooth substance disappeared, a dead tooth is also brittle, and thus more easily liable to fractures and cracking.

Until now, devitalized teeth were filled with large fillings, whose shortcomings we have mentioned before, or were built into the crowns, which is an acceptable solution, but it requires that you first install the root of an upgrade, in order to reconstruct the central part of a tooth. Only upon completion of that phase it is approachable to grind tooth substance, in order to allow a crown to rests on the tooth, which is the thing about teeth that already have a real problem of missing mass. In doing so, such a tooth often would not last long and investment in a complex crown of this type is not fully economically justified.

Now we have available endocrowns at dental office Cvejanovic, which are also made in the CEREC machine and whose key advantage is that they do not need to enter deep into the root of a tooth to be firmly positioned or is not necessary to remove significant tooth structure to ensure retention, so that is why the endocrowns are at the same time a field upgrade and crowns. Again, here we have to underline important advantage of ceramic crowns – that they are homogeneous, so there is no possibility of separation of materials at joints of a composite crowns, such as metal-ceramic or zirconia-ceramic.

As fillings, veneers, crowns and other elements made by using CAD / CAM methods and CEREC machine, endocrowns are made of solid ceramic blocks, by the measures obtained by scanning of devitalized tooth, and thanks to a combination of stronger materials and more accurate fit, these crowns are stronger and more durable than other solutions, while aesthetic level is very high. At the beginning of the treatment ceramic block are selected in a color that matches the color of a teeth, so there are no delays, and if needed there is a possibility for an additional painting and glazing, in order to achieve superior aesthetic results.

As with other procedures that are using CEREC machine for making crowns, the whole scanning process, manufacturing and installation takes less than one hour. Since the CEREC technology is relatively new there are still no studies that would show after how many years a devitalized tooth with ceramic crown had to be removed and how much is its life expectancy longer than devitalized tooth with filling, however, the data so far show that virtually all teeth with endoceramic crowns continue to function in the jaws for years without a problem and with no color changing, while with fillings and classic crowns this  very often is not the case.