Marginal Adaptation of Fixed Prostheses and Root Caries on Extracted Teeth

Abstract

The correlation between marginal adaptation of fixed prostheses and root caries was studied on 696 extracted teeth. Marginal adaptation was measured by the width of the gap between the prosthesis and the tooth. Marginal misfit was defined as a vertical gap of more than 0.1mm using Hu-Friedy #8 explorer or a horizontal gap of more than 0.5mm using a WHO probe.
The results were as follows:
1) 97.3% of the prostheses had misfit margins.
2) 71.8% of the teeth with prostheses suffered from root caries.
3) The teeth with misfit margins had significantly higher prevalence of root caries than those with fit margins.
4) The root caries with prostheses was found on all tooth surfaces. These results were different from the root caries without prostheses, which showed high prevalence at proximal surfaces.