Clinical and Radiographic Evaluation of Stainless Steel versus Zirconia Crowns on Primary Molars: Randomized Controlled Trial

Aim or purpose: To evaluate clinical and radiographic success of Stainless steel crowns versus zirconia crowns on primary molars.
Materials and methods: Two hundred and forty vital mandibular primary molars in sixty medically free patients were pulpotomized under general anaesthesia. The patients with an age range 4-6 years. After pulp therapy, molars were restored and divided into two equal groups, group (1) stainless steel crowns(control) and group (2) Zirconia crowns. Clinical and radiographic evaluation were conducted at baseline,3,6,9 and 12 months intervals utilizing Scoring system. Data were collected and analysed statistically.
Results: There was no statistically significant difference between GI and OHI scores in the two groups at base line, 3 ,6 months. Stainless Steel crown group showed statistically significantly higher mean GI and OHI scores than Zirconia crown group at 9 and 12 months. After 12 months, 75.8% of the Stainless-Steel crowns showed acceptable clinical and radiographic criteria compared to 80.8% of the Zirconia crowns. The drop out were 5 cases in Stainless Steel crown group comprising 20 molars and 4 cases in Zirconia group comprising 16 molars. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. After 12 months, 9.2% of the SSC group showed inter-proximal bone resorption compared to 7.5% of the Zirconia crowns. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups.
Conclusions: Regarding to the results of the current study, Zirconia crowns proved acceptable clinical and radiographic success compared to stainless steel crowns with an advantage of better esthetics.