The TRIOS intraoral scanner provided by 3SHAPE takes a digital impression and sends it to the laboratory in order to be examined by the technician. In just a few days, the laboratory sends back a piece manufactured from Zirconia, in our case from Katana Zirconia, from Kuraray Noritake Dental Inc. The multiple tests performed on various products led us to this material – introduced on the market in September 2015 – due to a superior transparency which changes the conventional image of Zirconia, leading the way to new positional methods for using this material in dental aesthetics.
Zirconia represents a material with excellent mechanical properties, reason for which it has become a more and more popular solution for the reconstruction of the posterior teeth or the ceramic frames for bridges and crowns. Since Zirconia is conventionally less transparent than ceramics, its use in the frontal zone was limited until now.
“Any thing is good for a certain purpose but no thing is good for all purposes…” this is why there are several versions of Katana Zirconia. For instance; in order to discover the secrets of a prosthetic operation of high quality, we must mention the fact that a high level of transparency is required for the frontal veneers and crowns in order to improve the harmony of reconstruction with the adjacent dental structures and in order to prevent a white visible appearance – UTML Katana Zirconia is fully transparent, with a very reduced colour intensity in the incisive zone in order to highlight the transparency present in the enamel of the natural teeth. There are also other versions of Katana Zirconia: STML, ML / HT. All you need to know is where, when and how to use them.
