Spectrophotometric evaluation of a novel aesthetic composite resin with respect to different backgrounds in vitro

Tooth colour matching of composite materials is often a common problem caused by a dark background from the oral cavity. Therefore, the aim of the study was to evaluate a novel aesthetic composite material and to assess the influence of white and black backgrounds. Tooth shades of 30 freshly extracted upper front teeth were determined using a spectrophotometer (SpectroShade (TM)) both against a white and a black background. Two class IV cavities in each tooth were prepared and restored using three different composite resins: Arabesk (TM) (AB), Synergy (TM) (SE) and the novel material Amaris (TM) (AM). After water storage for 1 week, differences in hue, saturation and lightness were measured to assess changes from baseline. After thermocycling, teeth were evaluated once more to assess the reliability of the treatment outcomes. Compared to baseline, differences in hue were not statistically different for all restoration materials (p > 0.05) with respect to the white or black background. Delta values for saturation were not different in the AB and AM groups (p > 0.05) with higher values for SE (p < 0.05). Regarding lightness, values in the AB group were statistically higher (p < 0.05) than values for AM with no difference between AB and SE and with no difference between the AM and SE groups (p > 0.05). Employing the novel aesthetic composite resin, a minor impact of white and black backgrounds could be observed compared to conventional composites. Therefore, it might effectively mask the dark background from the oral cavity.