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Predicting porcelain thickness required for dental shade matches
1School of Dental Medicine, Southern Illinois University, Alton, IL 62002, USA. Rodougl@slue.edu
Statement Of Problem:
Production of a ceramic dental restoration that matches a target shade is dependent on porcelain thickness. Even when adequate porcelain thickness exists, clinical shade matches are difficult to achieve.
Purpose:
This study predicted the thickness of dentin porcelain required to obtain a clinical shade match (=3 DeltaE units) for a variety of dental porcelain systems and shades.
Materials And Methods:
Three all-ceramic crown systems (Empress, Inceram-Alumina, Inceram-Spinell) and 2 metal ceramic systems (Vintage, VMK-95) were evaluated, each in shades A1, A3, and C2. Five specimens of each porcelain, of each shade, were fabricated at thicknesses of 1.0, 1.2, 1.5, and 2.0 mm. CIE-LAB coordinates were recorded for each specimen, and for the midgingival third of corresponding shade tabs with a Minolta CR-321 colorimeter.
Results:
Seventy percent of the color difference between specimen and shade tab was due to high L* (Munsell value) in the specimens. At thicknesses of =2.0 mm of dentin porcelain, the all-ceramic systems exhibited more shade matches than the metal ceramic systems.
Conclusions:
Specimens made from semi-translucent all-ceramic systems exhibited clinical shade matches that were superior to those made with the metal ceramic systems. Increasing thickness of the semi-translucent systems from 1.0 to 2.0 mm did not improve shade matching.