Hi Spear Fellows,

I saw on a study club DVD module that you can use ceramic overlay to bond to the occlusal surfaces of the max posteriors to increase the VDO in erosion case ( see the first pic ). It looks like the occ surfaces were hardly prepped and it's viable to restore the case with Zr overlays this way.

I had a case of #30 lately ( see my hand-drawn diagram ) and wonder if ceramic overlay can be used in the same way here to restore the tooth. However I'm not certain if thickness of Zr overlay has a limit, over that limit, it's easily debonded from the tooth? Can someone enlighten me? Thanks.

Besides, I spoke to one of my mentors about the #30 case, who said he would do crown lengthening and gold onlay for the #30 instead of bonding a ceramic restoration to the tooth. He doesn't believe one should simply rely on the 'glue' to hold the ceramic restoration in place for long-term. He thinks one needs at least 3mm crown prep height and sometimes add retentive grooves to enhance the resistence and retention. I want to spare the pt the CLP ( crown lengthening ) in the #30 case, but what he said is correct in the textbook sense I believe, so I don't know if it's modern dentistry vs. classical dentistry and both are correct? In addition, maybe the case in the DVD module, the ceramic restoration is completely bonded to ENAMEL, so you can do that; but in my case, it's mostly going to be bonded to dentin, you can't do that, ie. holding ceramic restoration on the tooth just by 'glue'? Any comment about that? How would you restore #30?

Thanks.

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