Background: Bonding to zirconia dental restorations often impairs long-term treatment outcomes. Nanostructured alumina coating (NAC) provides a promising pretreatment of the zirconia bonding surface. However, limited “in vitro” and “in vivo” evidence of NAC performance exists.
Purpose: The thesis aimed to study the effect of NAC on the resin-bond to zirconia surface and compare it to clinically established airborne-particle abrasion (APA) in “in vitro” and “in vivo” conditions.
Methods: For studying the effectiveness of NAC “in vitro”, the bonding performance of zirconia resin-bonded prostheses (RBFDPs) cemented on complementary zirconia incisors both pretreated with NAC or APA were compared after 150 days of water storage and thermomechanical aging (37.500 cycles, 5-55 〃; 50N/1.2×106 cycles) by measuring load-bearing capacity (LBC). For studying NAC “in vivo”, the clinical survivals of NAC and APA pretreated RBFDPs were compared in a prospective randomized, controlled clinical trial. For studying the influence of different ceramic firing procedures on the effectiveness of NAC “in vitro”, shear bond strength (SBS) of resin cement to zirconia discs pretreated with NAC calcinated under different firing procedures was measured.
Results: Before aging, the NAC pretreated RBFDPs provided superior mean LBC (724 ±58 N) to APA (564 ±31 N), while after aging, no differences were detected with the LBC approximately 590 N (P˃0.05). Survival rates of zirconia RBFDPs pretreated with NAC and APA were comparable (P˃0.05). Coupling the NAC calcination treatment with different firing protocols in a dental laboratory did not affect the NAC’s morphology, while it affected the crystal phase. SBS to NAC calcinated under high-temperature protocols provided the highest and clinically acceptable bond strengths (>20Mpa).
Conclusions: NAC and APA pretreated zirconia RBFDPs showed comparable bonding performance. Therefore, NAC could be regarded as a viable alternative pretreatment method not damaging the zirconia surface as opposed to APA.
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