How to Attached a Porcelain Dental Crown to Half of Tooth #20 Split Down the Middle. Half Goes All the Way to Gum-line? (photo)

The web shows endless examples of tooth crown preparation onto teeth with 100% of tooth still far above gum-line. My tooth in contrast is half lost, down to the gum-line. The other half is intact. How to attach a crown on the side where nothing can be prepped? Do they simply cement it directly onto the broken half with minimal preparation? They can still prep and shape the unbroken half of the tooth. Is such irregular shaped crowns normal? Is there greater risk of decay under the crown?

Doctor Answers (3)

How to attach crown to broken tooth?


You can reduce the tissue and bone around your broken tooth called crown lengthening or orthodontically extrude the tooth in both cases you are giving the dentist additional tooth structure to cement or bond a crown on the remaining toooth structure. good luck



Kevin Coughlin DMD, MBA, MAGD    CEO Baystate Dental PC

Springfield Cosmetic Dentist

Restoring Half of Tooth #20


Your dentist would have to take X-rays to see how badly the tooth is decayed below the gumline onto the root. If it is severe, then you are probably better off extracting it and placing an implant, rather than go through gum surgery, root canal, post and a crown. Better prognosis for the implant.

Jay Neuhaus, DDS
New York Cosmetic Dentist

Restoring a fractured tooth, even half a tooth.


Sorry to hear about the tooth fracturing, but you do make a great point, how do we rebuild a tooth this far broken down.

Now the amount of tooth that remains is important.  If its a stress fracture then the rest of the tooth is solid, if the fracture is because of decay then likely not much of the tooth remains.  One would need to prepare 360 degrees and rebuild the part of the missing tooth with a bonded composite core.  Sometimes, if an endodontic treatment is needed, a post may also inserted to help retain the core. A crown is then cemented onto the build up tooth.

Hope this helps.

Dan Hagi, DDS
Toronto Cosmetic Dentist
