Dental crowns are sometimes called caps, and are used to restore teeth that are significantly decayed, or which have lost tooth material due to trauma to full function. This is a conservative dental treatment that helps to preserve the remaining tooth structure. Leeds City Dentalcare can provide crowns made out of several different dental materials. They can be made out of gold, or they can be made out of a metal alloy that’s been covered with porcelain. The newest types of crowns are made out of all ceramic materials and are perfect for cosmetic makeovers.

Which Type of Crown is best?

Some people still prefer to have a gold crown, especially if it’s right at the back of the mouth and can’t really be seen, but many prefer something that blends in with their natural teeth. One choice is to opt for a crown that has a metal alloy substructure that is subsequently covered with porcelain. These create reasonably good aesthetic results, but often lack the translucency seen in natural teeth. This is because the metal substructure has to be covered with porcelain that’s quite thick and opaque, and while this prevents the metal colour from showing through, it also prevents the light from passing through the crown. Another problem that may happen with porcelain fused to metal crowns is that there can often be a grey area or line at the junction where the tooth meets the gum. This occurs because the porcelain is simply too thin in this area to be able to block out the metal.

All-Ceramic Crowns

In comparison all ceramic crowns don’t exhibit any of these problems. The light is able to pass through the crown in a way that is extremely similar to natural teeth. This gives the crown a translucency and vitality that is very similar to natural teeth. Even better, the modern materials used to make these crowns are extremely strong. Many have a substructure made out of a material called zirconia. Other types of all ceramic crowns are made from an ingot of ceramic material that is pressed under vacuum. These kinds of crowns are made at our dental laboratory, and require more than one visit to our Leeds surgery to complete. However Leeds City Dentalcare does offer an alternative type of all-ceramic crown which is made on our premises, and which can be completed in just one visit.

CEREC Crowns

CEREC crowns are pretty amazing, as this system uses the very latest CAD/CAM technology to create a precision-fit crown within a very short space of time. Your tooth is scanned using a tiny infrared camera and the information is sent to highly specialised software that enables Dr. David Brown or another dentist in Leeds to create a virtual crown. After this the information is sent to a machine that mills the crown out of a single block of porcelain. These blocks come in a huge variety of shades and translucencies so in a short space of time you’ll have a beautiful new crown that accurately matches your existing teeth.

Although this system is extremely good, we may not recommend this type of crown in Leeds for all teeth. It is perfect for restoring molars and premolars (the teeth used for chewing), but if you require crowns right in the front of your mouth we may be able to get better results through using conventional all-ceramic crowns, as the shading can be more precise and is more easily customised to create a naturally beautiful smile.