Fifteen years have passed since professors Isabelle Denry and Robert Kelly published two seminal literature reviews on zirconia for dental applications [1], [2] in Dental Materials (2008), based on their outstanding oral presentations at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Dental Materials (ADM) held in São Paulo, Brazil. As of January, 2024, these two papers had received a total of 2369 citations on Scopus, an indication that these manuscripts were important starting points for a significant number of researchers interested in developing their research projects on dental zirconia.

From 2008 to 2023, dental zirconia ceramics have evolved from a material with practically just one type of composition and microstructure, namely 3 mol.% yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystals (Y-TZP), to a relatively complex, sometimes graded material with great compositional and microstructural variations in terms of yttria and alumina contents and grain types/sizes, which resulted in a wide range of zirconia products currently available in the market with stark differences in mechanical and optical properties.

Despite exceptional mechanical properties, the Y-TZP available in 2008 had limited clinical indications and was used mostly as a core material for single crowns and fixed partial dentures (FPD), as well as implants and abutments. Due to the relatively high opacity, this first generation of materials needed to be veneered with a feldspathic porcelain or a glass-ceramic in order to achieve acceptable aesthetic properties of the final prosthesis. The next generations of zirconia materials expanded their indications to almost all types of prosthetic restorations and can be used both in a monolithic or layered structure, due to the wide range of translucency levels and mechanical properties.

Currently, manufacturers claim that depending of the material generation, zirconia can be used to produce inlays/onlays, veneers, crowns, fixed partial dentures with short or long spans, single implant post and abutment, resin-bonded anterior all-ceramic FPDs, and full rehabilitations over implants (Brånemark protocols) [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. The objective of the current literature review was to assess the articles published in the past 15 years to give an overview of the evolution of zirconia as a dental biomaterial and serve as a basis for the authors’ oral presentation at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Dental Materials in San Diego, USA.