Three pillars of aesthetics

How often do we encounter heavily stained anterior teeth in dental practice? Nearly every clinician has come across that problem at least once. In such cases, an invasive approach is usually required (the teeth need to be prosthetically restored with ceramic veneers or even crowns). However, since the concept of 'minimal invasiveness' has attained a following recently, it might be a good idea to start rethinking our ways of dealing with stained anterior teeth. Today's state-of-the-art composites enable dental professionals to use minimally invasive treatment protocols and achieve outstanding restorative results.

Training courses held on the subject of aesthetic dentistry usually focus on three basic aspects: shape, shade and surface texture. These are the three indispensable pillars without which the aesthetic restoration of anterior teeth would be impossible. However, in most cases attention is only paid to one of the aspects, namely shade. Why is this so? This article will show how all the three elements can be taken into account in order to achieve an aesthetic outcome.