Restorative & Materials · patient case question
The maxillary anterior teeth have been prepared and an adjacent unprepared tooth is available for reference. Which tooth is used as the reference for shade selection, and which dimension is matched first?
Patient case: Radiographic anatomy and removable design
Scenario: Three opening items: one radiographic landmark, one RPD component, one shade-selection decision.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: B. Tooth #10 — value
- A. Chroma is matched after value. A restoration with the right chroma but the wrong value will still read as wrong.
- B. Correct per the recall key. Value (lightness/darkness) is the shade dimension the eye detects first and the one most responsible for a restoration looking 'off' — so it is matched first, using the closest unprepared neighbour.
- C. Translucency matters at the incisal third but is refined last, after value and chroma are set.
- D. Hue is the least discriminating dimension in natural teeth; nearly all teeth fall in the A–B (yellow to yellow-red) families, so hue rarely drives a mismatch.
Note: This item was only partially recalled — the tooth numbers in the original stem were fragmentary. The transferable point is the ranking: value first, then chroma, then hue, then translucency.
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