Dental Crowns

Precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, have many suitable  qualities for use as a crown.

They are known to be strong, very durable and long-lasting (if well looked after), corrosion-resistant, produce a stellar fit over your tooth and live harmoniously with your partnering tooth.

However, the main drawback of precious metal crowns for many patients is their metallic colour. Therefore precious metal crowns are typically solely recommended for back molar teeth, where they will appear less conspicuous.

Porcelain-fused-with-Metal crowns attempt to mask the metallic colour of a metal crown by adding a layer of porcelain over the metal to give a aesthetic, tooth-coloured appearance.

This way, these crowns will be suitable on almost all the teeth in your mouth, even your front ones.

However, they do require the removal of tooth substance than precious metal crowns to accommodate for the additional porcelain. The porcelain is also slightly less durable than metal.

Lithium disilicate crowns are a type of full ceramic crown that is tooth-coloured, very natural looking, and have considerable strength and durability.

They can be used on your front, premolar and certain molar teeth. Patients who desire an aesthetic-looking crown, and do not like the idea of having any metal placed in their mouth can have their expectations fulfilled with lithium disilicate crowns.

Such full ceramic crowns can also take advantage of CAD-CAM digital method available for their construction.

Zirconia crowns are another type of full ceramic crown that is tooth-coloured, with moderate aesthetic properties, but has very high strength and durability – you will even be able to stand on one without it breaking!

They tend to be used on premolar or molar teeth, and for patients who do not like the idea of having any metal in their mouth. Similar to lithium disilicate crowns, CAD-CAM digital technology can be used for their construction

Stainless steel crowns are mainly used on children’s baby molar teeth to stop decay or to protect their weakened tooth structure after a pulpotomy or pulpectomy.