Three-year randomized clinical trial finds comparable performance in non-carious cervical restorations.
Restoring a non-carious cervical lesion can look deceptively simple. The cavity may be small, but achieving a restoration that blends naturally with the surrounding tooth can be surprisingly demanding—particularly when the cervical dentin is sclerotic, the enamel is thin and the substrate is discoloured.
Traditionally, clinicians have relied on multiple composite shades and incremental layering to reproduce the different optical characteristics of enamel and dentin.
But what if one shade could do the job?
Single-shade composites have been developed around the concept of the “chameleon effect”—the ability of a material to optically blend with the surrounding tooth rather than relying on multiple shades to reproduce its natural colour.
Does it continue to perform long-term in the similar manner?
A 36-month randomized clinical trial has now provided longer-term clinical data comparing a single-shade composite with a conventional multi-shade composite for the restoration of non-carious cervical lesions (NCCLs).
The study was designed as a single-centre, randomized, controlled, split-mouth, double-blind equivalence clinical trial. Sixty patients were included, with a mean age of more than 49 years.
Each participant received both restorative approaches, allowing the materials to be compared within the same patient. In total, 120 NCCL restorations were placed—60 using the single-shade composite Vittra Unique and 60 using the conventional multi-shade composite Vittra APS.
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