Ersatz gold in cheaper smiles

Press, 21 February 1980, Page 1

Ersatz gold in cheaper smiles

Christchurch dental patients’ hopes of carry* ing an investment in their mouths will soon be dashed as dentists begin to use a substitute for gold fillings- ■ , The substitutute, a nick-: el-chromium alloy, contains no gold and is markedly cheaper than the real thing. Christchurch Hospital, for example, will pay only $3OO this year for a quantity of ersatz gold, which would have cost $BOOO had it been real gold. • As the price of gold has soared in recent months, so has the cost of goldbased fillings, and dentists have shopped around for gold-substitutes. Although there have been cheap substitutes on the market before, none of them has shown all the desirable properties of gold. The new ; alloy, called Unibond, has impressed dental technicians in Christchurch, and they have placed many orders for it with the Christchurch agent, Dentists Supplies, Ltd. According to a sales representative with' the company (Miss

Sherie Williams), the alloy is “just what was needed at the time,” as the price of gold rose. The sort of savings that dentists could make .with the ersatz gold were illustrated by Christchurch Hospital’s senior dental surgeon (Mr D. S. Barker). He said that what would have cost $4OOO for real gold, would cost only $2OO for the alloy. Mr Barker said the alloy did not look like real gold, but patients would be none the wiser, -,as it: \yould be .used only as a. base for.- other materials, such as;,.porcelai6. Tests., had shown that it had the same properties in the mouth as gold. It must be able to withstand pressure of up to 400 pounds per square inch on molars, and must be able to expand and contract with the teeth without cracking or flowing. ’ ■ '■ Dentists are more likely to benefit from the savings than patients. Mr Barker said that the cost of gold in a filling or crown was not a big fac-

tor in the total bill received by the patient. The cost of the technicians’s and dentist’s labour was a more significant factor, and the new alloy would require more labour as it was a harder material to work.

The value of gold in a crown which cost $lOO, for instance, was about $2O. This would be reduced to about $2 using the nickel-chromium alloy, a saving of only $lB.