Purpose: This study evaluated the wear of human enamel opposing 5 low-fusing dental porcelains and a traditional feldspathic control. In a second experiment, the repeatability of the test method and the effect of ceramic overfiring on enamel wear were also evaluated.
Materials and methods: Five low-fusing dental porcelains--Finesse (FI), Rhapsody (RP), IPS d.Sign (DS), Omega 900 (OM), and Duceram LFC (LFC)--and 1 traditional feldspathic porcelain--VMK 68 (VMK)--were formed into disks (n = 10) and used as substrate for the wear test. Enamel was harvested from extracted human molars and machined into cusps with a 5-mm spherical radius (n = 60). The Oregon Health Sciences University oral wear simulator was used to simulate chewing and the size of the resulting enamel wear facets (in mm(2)) were evaluated after a specified number of chewing cycles. A portion of the experiment was duplicated to assess the repeatability of the data and determine the effects of overfiring on enamel wear. Data were subjected to analysis of variance and post hoc tests to determine significant differences. After wear testing, scanning electron micrographs were made using representative ceramic samples from each group.
Results: The results indicate that none of the low-fusing ceramics resulted in significantly less wear than the VMK control. In fact, 3 of the low-fusing porcelains (OM, RP, LFC) resulted in significantly greater enamel wear than VMK. Enamel wear was not significantly affected (p = 0.29) by the increased ceramic firing temperature. Wear data were repeatable, with no significant difference (p = 0.56) between the enamel wear from 2 separate experiments. The results from both experiments indicated that ceramic material significantly affected enamel wear (p <0.001). There was significantly less enamel wear opposite DS than LFC.
Conclusions: This work suggests that variations in ceramic composition and microstructure may affect the opposing enamel wear, but that low-fusing temperatures do not necessarily guarantee low enamel wear. Although the clinical relevance of this testing apparatus may be questioned, the testing method was repeatable.