A Clinical Efficiency of Home Whitening with/without Reservois

Objectives: The custom tray which is used for home whitening by patients is one of the major factor determing success of failure of tooth whitening. The present study was undertaken to compare the tooth-whitening effects between different types of the custom tray used with reservois and without reservoir. Methods: The home whitening agent used in this study was HiLite Shade Up (Shofu Inc.). The subjects were 5 patients between 20 and 40 years of age. Each patient whitened upper and lower anterior teeth (12 teeth in total) for 2 hours a day (14 sessions of whitening in total). We prepared a custom tray with the reservoir attached on the right side alone, 2 mm distant from the tooth neck. Tooth color was measured 3 times before the first session of whitening and another 3 times after the 14th session of whitening. The L*a*b*color system was determined using the Shofu Shade Eye (Shofu. Inc.). The change in color from the pre-whitening period to the post-whitening period was subjected to by three-way ANOVA. Results: There was a significant difference between the right side (used the reservoir) and the left side (without reservoir) (p<0.05). The change in color was greater on the right side (8.0) than on the left side (6.85). The change in color did not differ significantly between upper and lower teeth. The change in color varied significantly depending on the tooth type (P<0.01), with the change of color greater in the order of central incisor < lateral incisor < canine. Conclusions: The tooth whitening agent used in this study was thus shown to be useful. The bleaching effect was greater when a custom tray fitted with the reservoir was used than when a custom tray without the reservoir was used.