Comparative evaluation of visual and instrumental analysis in shade matching

Objective: Teeth shade matching process in daily dental clinic keeps on being ground of discomfort to many professionals for issues as subjectivity and intense training needing to improve the technique, which, frequently, brings unsatisfactory results for the professional-patient binomial. For that reason, instrumental methods have been developed with the intent to simplify that treatment stage and provide better results. Because of this, in the present study, two methods of shade matching were assessed comparativaly: visual and instrumental. Methods: The visual evaluation was accomplished by four dentists (three teachers and a student of Master's degree course in Dental Prosthesis) using the Vitapan® Classical shade guide, and the instrumental evaluation was carried out with a previously calibrated spectrophotometer (Spectroshade®) handled by a dentist. The analysis of the shade matching was made using as parameter the tooth 11 third medium of 30 volunteers, accomplished in a clinical atmosphere, with controlled conditions of illumination. The obtained data were analyzed by Kappa Index of Agreement and through the test of two proportions equality (p < .05). Results: The obtained data showed agreement among appraised shades in 76.7+11.1% for instrumental method and in 32.4+7,8% for visual method, what constitutes significant difference. Related to the analyzed substratum, there was no influence of the color value for Agreement Index. Conclusion: shade matching with instrumental method was more concordant and, therefore, more effective that accomplished by appraisers.