Introduction. To assess the fracture strength of polymer-reinforced hybrid Enamic® ceramics crowns and to compare them to porcelain-veneered zirconium dioxide crowns. Materials and methods. Forty replicas of the mandibular first molar where randomly divided into two groups. The first group (Zr), including zirconia-based crowns, acted as the control, and the second group (En), with polymer-reinforced hybrid ceramic crowns, acted as the test. Results and discussion. Enamic crowns showed a higher statistically significant (P=0.03) static fracture strength (6456 +/- 856 N) than zirconia crowns (4738 +/- 500 N). Conclusions. Hybrid polymer-reinforced ceramic crowns showed higher fracture resistance than conventional zirconia crowns. Clinical significance. The polymer-reinforced hybrid ceramics is a promising ceramic material. Further clinical studies are needed, however, to verify its performance.
Keywords:- enamic
- fracture strength
- hybrid ceramics
- zirconia crown