What is it about?
When two objects match under one light source but not under another, they are said to be metameric. Dental text books have generally accepted the view that illuminant metamerism is of considerable importance and that it should be addressed, for instance by considering the light source during shade assessment. This work has examined the metameric potential between 104 extracted human teeth and hand-layered zirconia restorations as well as monolithic restorations milled from multi-layer zirconia blanks.
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Why is it important?
The findings of this study have shown that, contrary to popular believe, illuminant metamerims is actually irrelevant, or at least for the samples under investigation. This is an important finding because it suggests that the type of metamerism that is often observed in clinical reality must have its origin in mechanisms that are not well understood at present.
Perspectives
This paper has met some resistance, perhaps because it defies expert opinion and/or it contradicts common wisdom in dentistry. In light of this, it is worth remembering "The Philosophy of Science" by the late Karl Popper. Popper saw science as the eternal challenge of accepted ideas in order to replace them with better ones. There may be a hidden type of metamerism that the field has yet to discover. Once better understood, we might even be able to fix it.
Dr Sascha Christian Hein
School of Design Leeds University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Illuminant metamerism between natural teeth and zirconia restorations evaluated with a chromatic adaptation transform, Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry, September 2023, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.prosdent.2023.07.035.
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