Case report: 36 months spectrophotometric evaluation of color stability after resin infiltration in two young patients with enamel defects

BACKGROUND: Iconâ proved to be effective on enamelhypomineralized lesions such as White Spot Lesion (WSL),Developmental Defects of Enamel (DDE) and mild cases ofFluorosis.1, 2, 3 Colour stability over time is the main criticity ofthe treatment and a recent systematic review 4 showed that theclinical efficacy grade of resin infiltration to manage enamelhypomineralization is low, mainly because the follow-up periodis limited to 12 months (5) and the long-term success rateis yet unknown. Moreover, most of the published data assessingthe validity of the method are done on in vitro artificiallesions (4). The aim of the present case report was to evaluatethe objective effectiveness on colour stability at 36 monthsof follow-up by resin infiltration in two siblings affected byceliac disease and presenting developmental defects of enamel(DDE) on the esthetically relevant teeth of the upper arch.METHO DS: The study was performed at Sapienza University,Rome, Italy. Eight permanent upper incisors with DDEwere used in this clinical report at 1st Observation Unit ofDepartment of Oral and Maxillofacial Sciences, “Sapienza”University of Rome. One trained operator executed Icon®infiltration; colour evaluation was performed using a calibratedreflectance spectrophotometer (SpectroShade, MICRO,Serial N HDL1407, MHT, Arbizzano di Negrar, Verona, Italy)at T0 (before treatment), at T1 (12 months), T2 (36 months)follow-up. To evaluate colour stability, the colour difference(DE) was calculated: I)DE1 between T0-T1; II)DE2 betweenT1-T2 and III)DE3 between T0-T2. Comparison of the DE withthe acceptability threshold (AT) was made.RESULTS: Overall, the average DE values in the incisalcentraland gingival sections indicating the amount of colourchange after resin infiltration between T1 and T0 were 4.46,3.54, 4.76; between T2 and T1 were 1.71, 2.35, 2.28 whilebetween T2 and T0 were 3.83, 3.74, 5.34. DE values at 36months are lower than acceptability threshold (3.3).CONCLUSIONS: The 36 months of follow-up showed amean DE of 2.1, on the other hand the colour change aftertreatment at 12 months of follow-up was 4.3. Colour variationat 3 years of follow up was lower than acceptability thresholdindicating an overall good colour stability.