Complications of endodontically treated teeth restored with fiber posts and single crowns or fixed dental prostheses—a systematic review

OBJECTIVE: The present systematic review aimed at assessing data from the literature on endodontic and prosthetic complications in endodontically treated teeth restored with fiber posts and single crowns (SCs) or fixed dental prostheses (FDPs). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Available randomized controlled clinical trials evaluating endodontic and prosthetic complications in the teeth treated with fiber posts and restored with different prosthetic restorations were reviewed. PubMed, Evidence-Based Dentistry, BMJ Clinical Evidence, Embase, DynaMed, and gray literature restricted to scientific literature were analyzed; also, manual researches were performed. English language and time filters (from 1990 to 2015) were used. RESULTS: The database search produced 4230 records, many of which were duplicates. The manual research did not produce any other relevant article. After duplications were removed, all the selected databases produced 3670 records. Reading titles and abstracts, two independent reviewers excluded 3664 reports. The full-texts of the remaining six reports were read. Only four studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this systematic review. CONCLUSIONS: The most frequently reported failures in the available studies were as follows: fiber post debonding, loss of retention of single crowns, and marginal gaps. Less frequently, chippings and fractures were recorded in SCs. No studies about complications related to FDPs were found. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: A correlation between the failure rates of fiber posts and the type of prosthetic restorations just like SCs and FDPs cannot be found to date. Further randomized controlled clinical studies are required to achieve evidence-based conclusions, particularly about the use of fiber posts with FDPs.