Color Masking White Fluorotic Spots by Resin Infiltration and Its Quantitation by Computerized Photographic Analysis: A 12-month Follow-up Study.

OBJECTIVE: To manage three cases of mild to moderate fluorosis by resin infiltration technique and to quantify the tooth color changes by measuring CIE L*a*b* values of digital photographs and calculating DeltaE(00) based on the CIEDE2000 formula using Adobe Photoshop software. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Three cases of mild to moderate fluorosis were treated with a combination of bleaching and a resin infiltration technique. CIE L*a*b* values of 18 fluorosed spots were measured from digital photographs of these cases at four different stages-preoperative, postbleaching, postinfiltration and at 12-month follow-up-using Adobe Photoshop software, and DeltaE(00) was calculated based on the CIEDE2000 formula. The DeltaE(00) values of all 18 points obtained at different stages were submitted to statistical analysis (alpha=0.05). RESULTS: In all the cases reported, clinically as well as by the photographic color analysis, it was found that the technique masked the lesions, improving the patients' esthetics, which was maintained even at 12-month recall. Statistically significant difference in DeltaE(00) values was present between comparison of all stages (p<0.001) except between postinfiltration and the 12-month follow-up stage (p=0.642). CONCLUSION: A resin infiltration technique helped in the satisfactory management of white spot lesions of fluorosis, which were stable even at 12-month follow up. Quantitation of the changes was achieved using Adobe Photoshop software.