Endocrowns - a literature review.

The opportunity of using Endocrown-type restorations in the current prosthetic dentistry practice as an alternative to other, well-established methods of corono-radicular restorations and the evolving palette of adhesive materials has made these restorations more popular in the last few years. The purpose is to review the available literature about Endocrown restorations regarding mechanical properties - fracture strength and resistance, survival rate, the preparation design - marginal and internal adaptation, and esthetics. The search was carried out on four databases: PubMed, Scopus (ScienceDirect), Web of Science, and Scielo using the following terms: "endocrowns", "endodontic crown", and" no buildup crown". Initially, a total of 163 articles published between 2015 and May 2021 were selected. After the duplicates, papers presented only as abstracts, articles in any other languages except English, and review articles were eliminated; a total of 72 articles remained to be considered for this review.After assessing the 72 considered articles, 37 were chosen as fit for this review. The reasons for the elimination of the other 35 articles were: their main focus was other than endocrowns, e.g., direct restorations, indirect restorations of vital teeth; case reports; study protocols. From the 37 articles selected, 34 were focused on mechanical properties, including the influence of the preparation design, and three on survival rate, of which one also had a point of view regarding esthetics. The literature included in this review shows that endocrowns perform similarly or even better in some cases than other coronal restorations. However, this statement must be interpreted cautiously, given that most articles were