BACKGROUNDIn dental clinics, dentition defects are commonly restored with conventional porcelain-fused-to-metal fixed bridges. However, Ni-Cr alloy ceramic fixed bridges are known to have several drawbacks such as marginal coloration of the neck, low casting precision and, most seriously, poor biocompatibility. These problems could be circumvented by using noble metal ceramic bridges; however, one negative issue related to the conventional noble metal ceramic bridges is its high price due to the use of a large amount of gold for pontic. Therefore, an auro-galvanoforming ceramic bridge would be ideal to retain the advantages of a conventional material, yet reduce the amount of noble metal used. This study aimed to investigate whether any destructive changes occur to the auro-galvanoforming ceramic bridge under a fatigue cyclic loading test.

METHODSOn standard models which the left maxillary first premolar is lost and with the cuspid teeth and the second premolar as the fixed bridge abutment teeth, six maxillary auro-galvanoforming ceramic bridges and six corresponding nichrome ceramic jointed crowns were made as group A, six nichrome ceramic bridges and six corresponding nichrome ceramic jointed crowns were made as group B (control group). And then all specimens were fixed and tested on a fatigue cyclic loading machine; the changes occurring to the surfaces of occlusal contact with large functional area and to the porcelain-metal interfaces of the nichrome primary copings margins were observed through a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

RESULTSIn 120 hours' continual observation, none of the specimens had porcelain coating fractures or scraping occurrence and all of the porcelain coatings had been kept intact under sinusoidal cyclic loading with the load range of 120 - 200 N and frequency of 5 Hz.

CONCLUSIONSAuro-galvanoforming ceramic bridges exhibited excellent fatigue strength in the fatigue cyclic loading test and may satisfy the clinical demand in theory, while the practical application shall be evaluated by observations in long-term clinical usage.