The Effect of Isolation and Dehydration on Shade Matching

Rubber dams are frequently used to enable clinicians to achieve better visualization and isolation for dental procedures. Growing in popularity thanks in part to an increasing number of techniques facilitating their placement, rubber dams are able to be used for myriad restorative procedures, including crown and veneer preparation and cementation. An effect of rubber dam use is reduction of saliva, which causes temporary dehydration of the isolated teeth. In turn, this dehydration affects shade matching, an important aspect of esthetic outcomes. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent that shade is altered from baseline due to dehydration from rubber dam use during restorative procedures, and, furthermore, to determine the length of time required for teeth to rehydrate back to their baseline shade.