How We Create A Dental Crown That Lasts 35 Years

At Prosthetic Dentistry of Washington, DC, Dr. Gerald Marlin and his precision team have an established reputation for delivering dental crowns that last over 35 years, while the national average is 7-10 years. The fact that insurance companies will pay for a replacement crown after 5 years validates that statistic. 

The advent of CAD/CAM (computer-created) crowns that are manufactured by a milling machine assures that such a short average durability time span will not improve in the future. Therefore, each person can expect to have their crowns redone within their life span. There are multiple adverse factors that can affect the milled crown’s fit, including the degree of accuracy “dialed in” by the “computer techie” for the milling. Unfortunately, when crowns fail, decay can occur which can result in a root canal being necessary, or, even worse, the tooth may need to be extracted and replaced with an implant. 

Why is it that our crowns last for such a long time? Attention to detail with the tooth preparation and temporization, taking the clinical or digital impression, and the fabrication in our in-house laboratory are key to obtaining precision results. Our technician hand-crafts each crown and evaluates the precision of the fit. Finally, all crowns are X-rayed to ensure that the anticipated crown fit has been achieved. If not, we simply redo the crown. It must be perfect.