A clinical comparison of alternative alloys

Abstract

For the purpose of evaluating the clinical performance of 2 alternative dental casting alloys, 17 crowns made from the low-gold alloy Midas® and 14 crowns made from the silver-palladium alloy Albacast® were inserted at random into 23 patients. In each patient a high-gold type-3 alloy, JS C®, served as a reference alloy. The patients were examined after 1 year with regard to tarnishing and certain factors such as plaque index, gingival index, and margin index. In addition, the California Dental Association's quality evaluation of dental care was used by two independent calibrated examiners. The results of the present study showed that the crowns made of the silver-palladium alloy were tarnished and had rough occlusal surfaces more often than crowns made of the low-gold and high-gold alloys.