Dental color matching: A comparison between visual and instrumental methods

The aim of this study was to compare the agreement rate (%) and color difference (Delta E-ab*) of three dental color-measuring devices, with the visual shade identification. The tooth color were determined by two operators, which were advised to select a VITA classic shade tab in each other's agreement. The Shadepilot (SP), CrystalEye (CE) and ShadeVision (SV) were used to measure tooth color. Statistically analyses include agreement rate (%), color difference (Delta E-ab*), McNemar test (p=0.05), Student's t-test (p=0.05) and Bland Altman scatterplots. The SP had an agreement of 56.3% with the visual shade determination, the CE 49.0% and SV 51.3%. Delta E-ab* of the visually and instrumentally selected shade tabs and natural teeth were frequently above the threshold for acceptability. Comparing both methods, for SP Delta E-ab* values differ in a range of clinical acceptability.