Prosthetic Re-Treatment Of Failed Fixed Dental Prosthesis Therapy and Its Correlation With Abfraction: A Retrospective Analysis

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of prosthetic re-treatment of failed fixed dental prosthesis therapy. There is a need to check for any harmful or unbalanced occlusal forces for planning for a fixed dental prosthesis as this may change the material to be used for the prosthesis as well as the treatment protocol. A retrospective study was done in a university based setting. Data of 86000 patients between June 2019 and March 2020 was reviewed from the patients records and analysed. Data of 782 patients with failed fixed dental prosthesis was analysed. Out of these 232 were retreatment cases and the reason for failure of fixed partial prosthesis patients was analysed. The data entered was tabulated and analysed for the prevalence of failure of fixed dental prosthesis and retreatment required due to posterior tooth loss, caries, esthetics, occlusal discrepancy, ceramic chipping and others. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS Software for Windows, version 20.0. It was found that 14% of the cases had posterior tooth loss, 26% cases were repeated because of ceramic chipping, 21% cases came back with dislodgement of the fixed dental prosthesis, 6% of the cases had caries of the abutment tooth, 15% cases showed some premature contacts or occlusal discrepancy, 18% of the cases were repeated because of esthetics. The Chi-square value showed no significant relation between age with respect to abfraction and reasons of failure. Similar results were found with respect to gender. The association between abfraction and failure of fixed dental prosthesis was statistically not significant, however there is an increased rate of ceramic chipping in patients with abfraction. The failure of the fixed dental prosthesis could also be due to factors such as improper isolation, improper manipulation of cement and heavy occlusal loads.