Measurement of tooth wear in patients with palatal erosion.
OBJECTIVE
To develop a reproducible method for the assessment of tooth wear in vivo using a laser profilometer.


METHODS
A controlled study to measure tooth wear.


METHODS
Wear was measured over a 6-month period in 13 patients with unexplained palatal dental erosion and compared with a group of 7 controls without any evidence of abnormal wear.


METHODS
Metal disks were cemented to the tooth surface and impressions taken at 6-month intervals. Wear was estimated by scanning the impressions with a contacting laser profilometer and measuring a change in depth around the disk over a 6-month period using fixed reference points on the metal disks.


RESULTS
A statistically significant difference was observed between patients with palatal erosion and the controls. Patients with erosion had a median of 36.5 microns of wear over 6 months (range 17.6-108.2) and the controls had a median of 3.7 microns (range 0.5-15.8).


CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a novel method for measuring erosion using fixed reference points cemented to the palatal surfaces of upper incisor teeth.
Bartlett
D W
DW
Department of Conservative Dentistry, UMDS, Guy's Hospital.
Blunt
L
L
Smith
B G
BG
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003945:Diagnosis, Oral / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007834:Lasers; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D019217:Tooth Attrition / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014077:Tooth Erosion / Q000175:diagnosis*