Resin strengthening of dental ceramics to prevent fracture of restorations in service

缺失或损坏的牙齿结构通常由牙科医生更换，以防止患者经历疼痛、敏感和感染，此外还能恢复功能和牙齿美学。牙齿修复可以直接在口腔中进行，也可以通过将预制修复粘结到准备好的牙齿上来间接进行。间接技术使牙科操作员能够更好地控制最终修复体的形状和形式，以及目前可用的材料，牙科陶瓷最适合在阴影、半透明和光泽下模拟牙齿结构。然而，人们对牙科陶瓷修复体的主要批评是它们在使用中容易发生骨折，尽管大量的工程技术来增加这些材料的强度，但临床研究的数据表明，每年的失败率约为3-5%。牙科修复失败对患者和相关卫生当局都有很高的成本影响，无论是修订牙科的费用还是就诊所需的时间。牙科医生可以选择不同类别的粘结材料来固定口腔中的牙科陶瓷修复体。其中，树脂基粘固剂可以粘结到牙齿和一些牙科陶瓷材料上，已被证明可以降低陶瓷修复体在使用中断裂的可能性。可以理解，这些材料的性能改善是因为树脂基水泥与陶瓷表面的缺陷相互作用，裂纹可能从中扩展。然而，对加固机制(S)知之甚少，从而阻碍了临床技术和骨水泥材料的优化，以开发可用的加固材料。这项拟议的研究旨在仔细描述加固机制，并开始确定树脂基水泥的材料特性，这些特性是为牙科陶瓷修复体提供最显著和最持久的加固所必需的。利用这些知识，将进一步努力开发新的树脂涂层和加工路线，以增强牙科陶瓷，并可在粘结之前应用。希望这项研究的结果可以很容易地转化为提供临床方案和开发优化的和/或新的材料，以减少在使用中的牙科陶瓷修复体的过早断裂的发生率。这项研究是与临床专家、行业合作者和国际学术合作伙伴密切合作进行的。

Missing or damaged tooth structure is routinely replaced by dental practitioners to prevent patients from experiencing pain, sensitivity and infection, in addition to restoring function and dental aesthetics. Tooth restoration may be performed directly in the mouth or indirectly by cementing a pre-fabricated restoration to the prepared tooth. Indirect techniques offer the dental operator greater control over the shape and form of the ultimate restoration and of the materials currently available, dental ceramics are most equipped to mimic tooth structure in shade, translucency and lustre. However, the major criticism levelled at dental ceramic restorations is their susceptibility to fracture in service and despite extensive engineering to increase the strength of these materials the data from clinical studies suggest the annual failure rate to be approximately 3-5%. Failure of dental restorations has high cost implications to both the patient and the relevant health authority both in terms of the cost of the revision dentistry and in terms of time required to attend appointments.Dental practitioners have a choice of different classes of cement materials available to use to secure dental ceramic restorations in the mouth. Of these, resin-based cements, which can adhesively bond to both the tooth and some dental ceramic materials, have been shown to reduce likelihood of fracture of the ceramic restoration in service. It is understood that the improved performance with these materials occurs because the resin-based cement interacts with the flaws on the surface of the ceramic from which a crack may propagate. However, the strengthening mechanism(s) is poorly understood thereby preventing the optimisation of the clinical techniques and the cementation materials required to exploit the available reinforcement. The proposed research aims to carefully characterise the strengthening mechanism and to begin to identify the material characteristics of the resin-based cement that are required to provide the most significant and durable reinforcement of dental ceramic restorations. Using these learnings, further efforts will be made to develop novel resin-coatings and processing routes that strengthen the dental ceramic and that may be applied prior to cementation. It is hoped that the outcomes of this study will be readily translatable into the provision of clinical protocols and development of optimised and/or novel materials that will reduce the incidence of premature fracture of dental ceramic restorations in service. The research is performed in close conjunction with clinical experts, industrial collaborators and international academic partners.