Post-and-Cores: Past to Present
For more than 250 years, clinicians have written about the placement of posts in the roots of teeth to retain restorations.1 As early as 1728, Pierre Fauchard described the use of “tenons,” which were metal posts screwed into the roots of teeth to retain bridges.1 In the mid-1800s, wood replaced metal as the post material, and the “pivot crown,” a wooden post fitted to an artificial crown and to the canal of the root, was popular among dentists.1 Often, these wooden posts would absorb fluids and expand, frequently causing root fractures.2 In the late 19th century, the “Richmond crown,” a single-piece post-retained crown with a porcelain facing, was engineered to function as a bridge retainer.2 During the 1930s, the custom cast post-and-core was developed to replace the one-piece post crowns. This procedure required casting a post-and-core as a separate component from the crown.2 This 2-step technique improved marginal adaptation and allowed for a variation in the path of insertion of the crown.1
