Evaluation and comparison of strip crowns and primary anterior zirconia crowns in 3–5 years old children at one year

Abstract

Preservation of the decayed primary anterior teeth is important until their natural exfoliation time as it acts as natural space maintainer. Two most common anterior aesthetic full coronal restorations, the strip crowns and the preformed zirconia crowns, are available options. To evaluate and compare the clinical outcomes (gingival health, plaque accumulation, teeth wear of opposing dentition, color match and restoration failure) of strip crowns and preformed primary anterior zirconia crowns at one year follow up in 3-5 years old children. Forty maxillary primary incisors were restored by either strip crown or zirconia crown. Permuted block randomisation method was used for allocation of participants. Gingival health, plaque accumulation, teeth wear of the opposing dentition, color match and restoration failure for crowns were assessed at one-year follow-up. Data was analysed using McNemar- Bowker test and Chi-Square test. At one-year follow-up, gingival inflammation, plaque accumulation, restoration failure were significantly higher for the strip crowns (level of significance = 0.012, 0.013 and 0.0001, respectively) and, no statistically significant difference was found between the strip crowns and zirconia crowns for teeth wear of opposing dentition and color match evaluation (level of significance = 0.435 and 0.168, respectively). Overall, zirconia crowns were found more successful than strip crowns for the rehabilitation of caries affected primary incisors.