Comparative wear analysis of conventional versus CAD/CAM composite veneered PEEK crowns using 3D surface deviation

Abstract

Purpose: Due to a lack of data on their wear behavior, the study aimed to analyze the two-body wear rate of two different composite veneered computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) polyetheretherketone (PEEK) posterior crowns after wear simulation using 3D surface deviation. Materials and Methods: Twenty duplicated epoxy resin models of prepared mandibular first molar to receive an all-ceramic crown were fabricated. Twenty CAD/CAM PEEK substructures were manufactured and divided according to the veneering technique into two groups (n=10); group (H): CAD/CAM High Impact Polymer Composite (HIPC) veneered PEEK substructures, and group (C): Conventional Crea.lign composite veneered PEEK substructures (control). The specimens underwent thermal and mechanical loading (49N, 5/55◦C; 120,000 chewing cycles) as antagonized by steatite ceramic balls. 3D surface deviation analysis using a 3D dental scanner and Geomagic Design X software was applied before and after chewing simulation to determine the volumetric wear loss (mm3). Data were statistically analyzed with the Mann-Whitney U test to compare the two groups. The significance level was set at p≤0.05. Results: H group (-0.0398 [-0.0913- -0.0042] mm3) showed statistically significant lower median volumetric wear loss than C group (0.1195 [0.0233-0.233] mm3) (P-value=0.050, Effect size=2.928). Conclusions: HIPC veneered PEEK crowns showed lower volumetric wear loss than Crea.lign veneered PEEK crowns