Midline Diastema Closure with Partial Laminate Veneers: A Case Report

Progress in adhesive technologies has made possible to perform more conservative restoration techniques. Bonded porcelain veneers have been widely used to address aesthetic dental problems for more than 3 decades1,2. Aesthetic parameter plays an important role when deciding the treatment choice of a patient with diastema. Development of the adhesive materials allows the dentist to construct more longevity and conservative restorations as laminate veneers3. Also CAD/CAM technology allows the dentists to prepare aesthetic and good fitted restorations in one chair-time by using big variety of materials. Conservative tooth preparation facilitates optimizing the emergence profile and overall contour and provides a definite finishing line3. Recently, minimally invasive veneer preparation designs have become popular. These involve less tooth reduction, partial coverage, and minimal porcelain thickness. Thicknesses of 0.3 mm has been reported for minimally invasive veneers4-6, whereas conventional porcelain veneers generally range from 0.3 to 1.0 mm in thickness7-10. Laminate veneers involve less tooth reduction, partial coverage, and still aesthetic outcome comparing to other treatment alternative: ceramic crowns7-9. Due to the trend in the conservative approaches for the dentists and the patients, tooth preparations are not well accepted in most cases. Therefore, composite laminate veneers by constructing with direct technic gained importance and were accepted as an alternative treatment for some dentists. However, the difficulty of fabricating with direct technic, polymerization shrinkage of the restorative materials, deficiency of colour adjustments, polishing and discoloration of composite materials are still some of the disadvantages of this technique. Hybrid materials, which have themselves both ceramic and resin properties, seem to be a good choice for adhesive restorations with good bonding ability, and with aesthetically more stable and predictable results. These kind of materials may have a better ability to be repaired or modified with resin materials. In this case report, the minimally invasive, partial restoration was fabricated with hybrid material by CAD/CAM technique. By using this fabrication technique, it was easier to prepare the restoration comparing to composite build-up with direct technique. It was also an advantage to modify the restoration with composite restorative materials.