Publications

Purpose: To compare the translucency of 6 different types of ceramic material using three different thicknesses. Materials and methods: Square shaped specimens were cut from different types of ceramics with variable translucencies (e.max CAD HT, e.max CAD LT, ultra-translucency zirconia, top-translucency zirconia, supertranslucency zirconia and high-translucency zirconia). Total samples of 144 specimens were divided into 6 main groups according to material; each group was divided into 3 subgroups according to thickness used (0.4, 0.6 and 1 mm). Using spectrophotometer each specimen was tested three times against white and black background and the average was taken to calculate translucency parameter (TP). Results: Viewing the mean of translucency between studied groups, group EMHT (9.10 ± 1.45) scored the highest TP followed by group EMLT (8.36 ± 1.42) then group UTZ (6.66 ± 2.49), TTZ (6.25 ± 0.95), STZ (4.93 ± 0.96) and HTZ (4.83 ± 1.34) showed the lowest value. Each material showed a difference in mean value with different thicknesses. At 0.4mm thickness one-way ANOVA revealed no significant difference between EMHT and UTZ (P=0.942). Conclusions: Glass ceramics showed higher TP values than crystalline based ceramics which means e.max is more translucent than zirconia. The thickness of the material has direct effect on its translucency. Ultra-translucency zirconia is the most recommended material to be used in conservative esthetic cases.