An in vitro evaluation of the integrity of stainless steel crown margins cemented with different luting agents.

The elderly population is retaining more teeth which require extensive restorations. The purpose of this study was to identify a luting agent which had the least marginal breakdown when used with stainless steel crowns. Thirty-six caries-free molars were selected, prepared for stainless steel crowns, and embedded in acrylic to support the crown and tooth. The crowns (Unitek/3M) were cemented with 4 different luting agents: (A) Fleck's Cement, (B) Ketac-Cem, (C) All-Bond C & B Cement, and (D) Panavia EX Cement. All the restored teeth were thermocycled and divided into 3 experimental groups. Twelve teeth were stained. The remaining teeth were occlusally loaded and stained. The remaining 12 teeth were thermocycled and stained again. The stainless steel crowns were then sectioned and photographed at 7.5x mag. The dye penetration was evaluated by measurement of the percentage of dye penetration from the crown margin to the cusp tip on each side. Statistical analysis found that the least dye penetration was with All-Bond C & B Cement (p = 0.0001). The most extensive penetration was observed in Ketac-Cem Occlusal loading was a significant factor (p = 0.0001) increasing the dye penetration, but the crown-tooth gap was not.