Porcelain Crowns
DR. MARK SWEENEY: Even on back teeth we can use all ceramic restorations now. There’s really very little need for metal to be involved in dentistry anymore. We almost everyday are making crowns to go on back chewing teeth, on the molars that are all ceramic restorations. The advantage then over porcelain to metal is rather than being cemented into place, they’re actually chemically bonded into place and they’re much more natural looking because they transmit light very similar to the way a real tooth does whereas the porcelain to metal restorations are opaque and its very difficult to make those natural and lifelike. With the modern materials, all ceramic restorations even in the back of the mouth are just as strong as the older type dentistry that used to have metal in it. We have a material called zirconium now that is white and very similar to the shade of a natural tooth and it can be used underneath the porcelain layer just as effectively as metal was so that now we’re actually able to even replace missing teeth with bridges that are all ceramic and have no metal content.