Does a zirconia crown wear down the opposite tooth?

In most clinical studies, a zirconia crown wore the tooth it bites against a little more than a natural tooth would, at least over the first year or two that studies have followed. The amounts measured are small, often a few hundredths of a millimetre, and two randomised trials found no significant difference. How the crown surface is finished and how much you clench or grind may also play a part, although the evidence on both is limited.

Why the question comes up

Zirconia is a very hard material, so it is reasonable to ask whether a zirconia crown acts like sandpaper on the opposite tooth. Researchers had the same concern when crowns made entirely of zirconia came into use. Porcelain is a useful comparison. Zirconia crowns can be made with a layer of veneering porcelain over the zirconia, and in a 2014 laboratory study by Lawson and colleagues (Journal of Dentistry) veneering porcelain produced the most wear of the opposing enamel of any material tested. A 2022 meta-analysis by León Velastegui and colleagues (Journal of Clinical Medicine) likewise found that feldspathic porcelain produced the greatest wear of the opposing tooth among the ceramics it compared.

Computer-aided design and milling have made it practical to make monolithic zirconia crowns, meaning crowns made from a single piece of zirconia with no porcelain layer on the biting surface. That is the type most of the studies below looked at. Hardness alone does not appear to decide wear: a 2024 review by Okkar Kyaw and colleagues (Japanese Dental Science Review) noted that no relationship between ceramic hardness and the rate of enamel wear in people has been established. The review grouped the factors that do affect wear into the material's mechanical and physical properties, its wear behaviour and microstructure, its surface state and the mouth environment, and concluded that well-polished zirconia compares favourably with lithium disilicate on this measure.

What happened when crowns were measured in people

Clinical wear studies take impressions or scans of the crown and the opposing tooth at intervals and compare them with untreated natural teeth elsewhere in the same mouth. The table shows four of them.

For scale, 46 micrometres is less than one twentieth of a millimetre. In the earlier six-month report from the Stober group (2014), the mean vertical loss was 33 micrometres for the enamel opposite zirconia and 10 micrometres for the control teeth, and the authors noted that this was comparable with, or lower than, the wear reported for other ceramics in previous studies.

The reviews do not fully agree

When these trials are pooled, the answer depends on which studies are included and how wear is measured.

• Mao and colleagues (Journal of Dentistry, 2024) combined 7 clinical studies covering 261 crowns in 177 people, followed for up to 24 months. Compared with natural teeth, zirconia caused about 40 micrometres more vertical loss on the opposing enamel and metal-ceramic about 82 micrometres more, while lithium disilicate caused about 5 micrometres more, a difference that was not statistically significant. The authors called for more and larger randomised trials.
• Rosa and colleagues (Dentistry Journal, 2026) pooled 9 clinical studies with 203 patients and follow-up of 6 to 24 months. Both monolithic zirconia and lithium disilicate produced significantly more wear than enamel against enamel, while metal-ceramic crowns with a feldspathic porcelain layer did not reach statistical significance. The authors noted substantial variability between the zirconia studies, which they suggested may reflect differences in how wear was measured and how crowns were finished.
• León Velastegui and colleagues (2022) reached a different conclusion: zirconia generated the least wear of the ceramics compared, and the wear decreased over time to become equal to or less than natural tooth wear.
• An earlier systematic review by Gou and colleagues (Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry, 2019) could not combine the studies at all, because their designs, surface treatments and measuring methods differed too much. It judged zirconia wear to be similar to or more than that of natural teeth, but less than that of metal-ceramics.

Read together, the reviews show that the studies are small, short and measured in different ways. None followed crowns for longer than about two years, so they say little about what happens over ten or twenty.

The surface finish may matter

A crown often needs small adjustments to the bite after it is fitted, and grinding leaves the surface rougher. In the Lawson laboratory study, enamel opposite zirconia that had been adjusted and then polished wore less than enamel opposite zirconia that had been adjusted only, or adjusted and then glazed. The authors recommended polishing zirconia and lithium disilicate after adjustment.

Clinical results are less clear. The Badawy endocrown trial found no significant difference between glazed and polished zirconia after two years, and Woraganjanaboon and colleagues found no link between how rough the opposing tooth surface was and how much it wore. A 2025 laboratory study by Monteiro and colleagues found that adjusting and repolishing glazed zirconia left it rougher than the original glaze, although the wear of the material standing in for the opposing tooth did not differ by surface finish or brand. Polishing after adjustment is what the Lawson laboratory study recommends, but the evidence does not show that one finish is clearly better in the mouth.

If you clench or grind your teeth

People who grind their teeth are the group with the least data on wear of the opposing tooth. The Stober group excluded people with high night-time muscle activity from the two-year study, and in the six-month report they identified night-time masseter activity and gender as possible factors affecting wear. So the wear figures above may not apply to heavy grinders.

What has been studied is whether the crowns themselves hold up. In a 2026 trial by Bömicke and colleagues (Journal of Dentistry), 109 people needing a molar crown were checked for sleep bruxism with a questionnaire, an examination and a portable muscle recording device, and the crown material, monolithic lithium disilicate or zirconia, was allocated at random. The four groups reported in the results (bruxism or not, each material) held 93 people. Protective night guards were not allowed. Over three years no technical complications occurred in any group, and bruxism had no detectable effect on crown survival or success. That trial looked at the crowns, not at wear of the opposing teeth.

healthdirect notes that grinding can crack, chip or wear teeth, and that a custom-made mouthguard, known as an occlusal splint, can help protect them (healthdirect: teeth grinding). You can read how grinding wear differs from erosion and brushing wear in our post on types of tooth wear, and what a night guard involves in our night guard guide.

How this fits with choosing a crown material

Wear of the opposite tooth is one factor among several. Strength, the amount of tooth that has to be removed, appearance and how the crown is bonded all come into the choice, and the trade-offs between materials are set out in ceramic vs zirconia crowns and types of dental crowns. Gold is another option, discussed in gold crowns and gold onlays.

At Lumi Dental we use e.max (lithium disilicate) and offer zirconia as a choice. Which material suits a particular tooth depends on the space available, the bite and the tooth's position, and is discussed at an examination. You can read more about crowns at Lumi.

For dentists: what the evidence says about adjustment, polishing and veneering porcelain

Lawson and colleagues found in vitro that adjusted zirconia left unpolished, or adjusted and then glazed, wore the opposing enamel more than adjusted and polished zirconia, and they advised against veneering porcelain in areas of occlusal contact. Treat this as a laboratory signal rather than a proven clinical effect: in the mouth, Badawy and colleagues found no significant difference between glazed and polished zirconia endocrowns over two years, and in vitro Monteiro and colleagues found that simulated adjustment and repolishing left zirconia rougher than the original glaze, while wear of the steatite antagonist was not affected by surface condition or brand (wear of the zirconia itself varied by brand). The Stober trial excluded patients with high nocturnal masseter activity and the clinical wear trials followed patients for no more than two years, so for a known heavy grinder the wear figures in these trials may not apply.

Common questions

Will my zirconia crown wear down the tooth it bites against?

Most clinical studies have measured some wear of the opposing tooth, usually a few hundredths of a millimetre over one to two years, and some found no more wear than enamel against enamel. Longer-term data are lacking.

Is zirconia worse for the opposite tooth than porcelain?

One laboratory study and one meta-analysis found that feldspathic porcelain caused more wear than zirconia, but a 2026 meta-analysis did not find significant wear from metal-ceramic crowns with a porcelain layer. The evidence is mixed.

Does a rough crown wear teeth faster?

In laboratory testing, adjusted zirconia that was not polished wore the opposing enamel more than polished zirconia. In one two-year clinical trial of zirconia endocrowns, the difference between glazed and polished surfaces was not significant.

Sources

• Stober T and colleagues. Clinical assessment of enamel wear caused by monolithic zirconia crowns. Journal of Oral Rehabilitation, 2016. PubMed 27198539
• Stober T and colleagues. Enamel wear caused by monolithic zirconia crowns after 6 months of clinical use. Journal of Oral Rehabilitation, 2014. PubMed 24447258
• Esquivel-Upshaw JF and colleagues. Randomized clinical study of wear of enamel antagonists against polished monolithic zirconia crowns. Journal of Dentistry, 2018. PubMed 29042241
• Woraganjanaboon P and colleagues. A two-year clinical trial of enamel wear opposing 5Y-TZP and lithium disilicate crowns. Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry, 2025. PubMed 39138093
• Badawy H and colleagues. Two-year clinical evaluation of enamel wear antagonistic to polished and glazed monolithic zirconia endocrowns. Journal of Esthetic and Restorative Dentistry, 2025. PubMed 39710626
• Mao Z and colleagues. Antagonist enamel tooth wear produced by different dental ceramic systems: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials. Journal of Dentistry, 2024. PubMed 38211687
• Rosa CDDRD and colleagues. Comparative wear of opposing natural enamel by different ceramic materials in fixed dental protheses: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Dentistry Journal, 2026. PubMed 41590161
• León Velastegui M and colleagues. Enamel wear of antagonist tooth caused by dental ceramics: systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2022. PubMed 36362777
• Gou M and colleagues. Antagonist enamel wear of tooth-supported monolithic zirconia posterior crowns in vivo: a systematic review. Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry, 2019. PubMed 30509545
• Lawson NC and colleagues. Wear of enamel opposing zirconia and lithium disilicate after adjustment, polishing and glazing. Journal of Dentistry, 2014. PubMed 25257823
• Monteiro KN and colleagues. Effect of occlusal adjustment and subsequent repolishing on the surface roughness and volumetric wear of different types of glazed monolithic zirconia after chewing simulation. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, 2025. PubMed 39541609
• Okkar Kyaw and colleagues. Tribological aspects of enamel wear caused by zirconia and lithium disilicate: a meta-narrative review. Japanese Dental Science Review, 2024. PubMed 39687636
• Bömicke W and colleagues. Ceramic crowns and sleep bruxism: 3-year results of a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Dentistry, 2026. PubMed 41967567
• Healthdirect Australia. Teeth grinding (bruxism). healthdirect.gov.au

This article is general information only and is not a substitute for an in-person assessment by a dental professional.