Abstract: Assessment of tooth color by visual evaluation is a complex task. A number of attempts to build a reliable instrument that can measure the color of teeth have been undertaken in the last 15 years. These attempts were aimed at using conventional colorimeters designed for color measurement of oblique objects. However, the translucency of teeth strongly affected the colorimeters' readout because of the size of the measuring aperture and the geometry of the spectroscope. Here we present the results of our spectroscopic study of dental materials and human teeth that show a characteristic behavior of optical spectra collected with a fiberoptic probe. The probe consisted of 300 micrometer irradiating and 1 mm detecting fibers that were coupled to a white light source (color temperature 6500 K) and to a spectroscope. The conventional shades from Vita and Chromascop shade guides were measured with different location of the fibers. The color of the dental shades was measured by a standard spectrophotometer with two different apertures. We found that registered spectra depended on fiber position and color coordinates changed with aperture size. The influence of the fiber positioning was approved with color measurement of vital teeth. A simplified colorimetric system based on two color coordinates, lightness L*, and the difference, (a* - b*), has been proposed. Finally, we describe a novel dental color matching device based on a fiberoptic probe. The device is able to classify all dental shades from Vita, Chromascop, and Bioform shade guides and is aimed at better color matching of restorative materials to native teeth. !29
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