One of the main goals of the luting agent, which bonds the cast restoration to the prepared tooth, is to seal the gap between them. Standardized preparations were made on 20 extracted teeth in order to evaluate microleakage. The crowns were made in NiCr, and in one group of 10 crowns zinc phosphate was used as the luting agent; in the other 10, Panavia 21 was used. The samples were thermocycled and then put into methylene blue solution (0.5%). After buccolingual sectioning of the cemented crowns, the samples were examined with a magnifier. There was a significant difference between the two groups: 100% of the zinc phosphate cemented crowns presented microleakage reaching the dentin and the pulp and 100% of the samples with Panavia 21 did not suffer any microleakage. So, as to the marginal microleakage with cast metal crowns in NiCr, the Panavia 21 luting agent presented better results than did zinc phosphate.
Dental leakage; Cementation; Crown
