The other day I had a patient in for recall who was the lucky recipient of my very first zirconia crown back in 2009. That crown on number 15 was still there and still looked great…radiographically. Esthetically, as we all know, those early zirconia weren’t exactly AACD level. It sort of looked like milled bone—like if my lab tech had decided to take up scrimshaw as a hobby and started carving crowns out of some sperm whale’s femur. (I guess sperm whales probably don’t have femurs, do they?) Regardless, the crown was not esthetically appealing.
Coincidentally, the next day, I saw a patient on recall for whom I had done a couple of ZirCAD Prime crowns on teeth 4, 5, and 6. These were dime pieces. Smoke shows. These crowns were so beautiful. It’s amazing to see the progress we’ve made with zirconia over the past decade. It’s great to see that a company like Ivoclar Vivadent spearheading that progress in zirconia is also progressing the delivery of zirconia with ZirCAD Cement.
ZirCAD Cement is a resin-modified glass ionomer cement that is radiopaque and fluoride-releasing. It’s designed to be used with high-strength ceramics such as zirconia without the use of an additional primer. This brings some simplicity to an already crowded, confusing area. While ZirCAD Cement is a self-cure material, it does offer a tack-curing option to remove the excess.
Instructions for using ZirCAD Cement are fairly simple. After your restoration is fitted and checked, make sure your preparation is isolated, clean and dry (but not overdried). Load the crown with ZirCAD Cement from the auto-mix syringe, and deliver the crown with gentle pressure. Hit it with your curing light for about five seconds from the buccal and lingual. That will put the ZirCAD Cement into a nice gel phase that is easy to remove the excess. Working time is around two minutes from the start of mixing, and curing is complete in around four minutes and 30 seconds.
There’s no doubt that zirconia has taken over the indirect restorative market. Along with that, we need simple, economical cementation options. ZirCAD Prime does that and does that well! Single up the middle for ZirCAD Cement!
