METHODS: Visible proximal surfaces of extracted human teeth were assessed by ICDAS-II before setting them in five manikin mouth models. Then contacting proximal surfaces in mouth models were assessed by BW and CS. Histological validation with polarized-light microscopy served as a gold standard. Pairwise comparisons were performed on area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity of the three methods, and corrected using Bonferroni's method. Sensitivities and specificities were compared using a test of proportions and AUC values were compared using DeLong's method.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to compare the biaxial flexural strength of three core ceramic materials.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Three groups of 10 disc-shaped specimens (16 mm diameter x 1.2 mm thickness - in accordance with ISO-6872, 1995) were made from the following ceramic materials: Turkom-Cera Fused Alumina [(Turkom-Ceramic (M) Sdn Bhd, Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia)], In-Ceram (Vita Zahnfabrik, Bad Säckingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany) and Vitadur-N (Vita Zahnfabrik, Bad Säckingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany), which were sintered according to the manufacturer's recommendations. The specimens were subjected to biaxial flexural strength test in an universal testing machine at a crosshead speed of 0.5 mm/min. The definitive fracture load was recorded for each specimen and the biaxial flexural strength was calculated from an equation in accordance with ISO-6872.

RESULTS: The mean biaxial flexural strength values were: Turkom-Cera: 506.8 ± 87.01 MPa, In-Ceram: 347.4 ± 28.83 MPa and Vitadur-N: 128.7 ± 12.72 MPa. The results were analyzed by the Levene's test and Dunnett's T3 post-hoc test (SPSS software V11.5.0 for Windows, SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA ) at a preset significance level of 5% because of unequal group variances (P<0.001). There was statistically significant difference between the three core ceramics (P<0.05). Turkom-Cera showed the highest biaxial flexural strength, followed by In-Ceram and Vitadur-N.