An In Vitro Assessment of Marginal Accuracies in Copings Fabricated With Two Dissimilar Alloys: An Original Research Study

Background: Marginal accuracy is one of the serious factors that play a key role in the overall success of prostheses. It is openly associated with marginal activities of microorganisms, which may develop micro-leakage and other problems. Therefore, this in vitro study was conducted to assess marginal accuracies in copings fabricated with two different alloys used in fixed partial dentures. Materials and Methods: Two popularly used metal alloys, Mealloy (nickel-chromium alloy) (Dentsply India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India) and Supranium (nickel-chromium alloy) (Bombay Precision Alloy Inc., Mumbai, India), were studied. Group 1 has 20 copings of Mealloy; group 2 also has 20 copings of Supranium. Blue inlay wax was used for wax pattern fabrication. All copings were cast and made by similar casting techniques. After adequate seating of copings on metal dies, the marginal difference was assessed under a stereomicroscope at typical intensification. All measurements were noticed and converted to the nearest micron. For each coping sample, four measurements were recorded; however, the means of all four surfaces were taken into account for further analysis. Results: All interrelated data was processed by statistical analysis using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 22.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). The overall mean marginal gap of the samples of group 1 was higher than group 2. For group 1 coping samples, a maximum mean marginal gap of 43.379 was noticed at the buccal surface of the copings. P-value computation revealed non-significant values (0.60). For group 2 coping samples, a maximum mean marginal gap of 41.218 was found at the buccal surface of the copings. The measured value was 41.218. One-way ANOVA analysis showed that the degree of freedom was 132.13 for cumulative comparison, while it was 2.930 and 6.837 for calculations between groups and within groups, respectively. Two-sample t-test assessments revealed a p-value of 0.001 (significant) for group 1 and a p-value of 0.810 (non-significant) for group 2. Conclusion: The marginal space at the margin of the metal coping and the die was minimum for Supranium and maximum for Mealloy. Also, highly significant values were also identified for the metal samples of Supranium. Additionally, the selection of the perfect metal alloy should be entirely dependent on operator skills and clinical decision-making.