Dr Ali Mattar Dental Centre provides full coverage crowns for patients within a day, with the help of computer-aided design and manufacture.
After the root canal treatment, it is recommended to go for a full coverage crown and when this is informed to patients the most common queries are, ‘what is a crown?’, ‘why is it required?’ and ‘is it a must?’.
A dental crown is a tooth shaped ‘cap’ that is placed over a tooth to restore its shape, size, strength and appearance.
Whenever the tooth needs a root canal it is often decayed or hollow with no strength left to take on the chewing and
grinding forces, which makes it vulnerable to fracture, and if it fractures there is nothing that can save it – the tooth has to be removed.
Hence, a crown is a must especially for the back teeth (molars and premolars) to safeguard them and restore their function and appearance.
However, for the front teeth such as incisors and canines that are relatively intact, a root canal without crown placement might be fine because these front teeth experience less physical stress than back teeth as they are not used for chewing.
There are various types of crowns such as the pure metal crown, which is made up of an alloy and is of the most basic type – it has become obsolete for aesthetic reasons.
There is also the metal ceramic crown, which contains a layer of tooth coloured ceramic over the metal, but the drawback is that this layer may chip off exposing the metal inside.
The pure ceramic zirconia crowns have specific indications when strength is required, but have some drawbacks and these
can be manufactured using the computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) system which 3D prints the crown.
All ceramic or pure ceramic crowns are the best in appearance and durability at the same time, they can be customised for the patient using CAD /CAM and it can be made in a single visit.
Gone are the days when we had to send the impressions to the laboratory and wait for a week to receive a crown and anaesthetise the patient twice; now with the CAD /CAM technology, everything will be finished in an hour and a half.
Once the crown is ready, the dentist will check the accuracy of the crown and then cement it to make it part of the existing tooth structure; millions of people have crowns made that way and they are very happy.
Dr Ali Mattar Dental Centre is located in Gudaibiya and is open Saturday to Thursday 9am to 1pm and 3.30pm to 7pm.
Call 17714877 or 17715463 for appointments.
Visit www.draliconsultgrp.com for further information.