Evaluating the ability of dental technician students and graduate dentists to match tooth color Gulden Sinmazisik, DDS, PhD, a Goksu Trakyali, DDS, PhD, b and Bilge Tarcin, DDS, PhD c Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey Statement of problem. The ability of dental technician students to match tooth shade with the Vita 3D-Master shade guide and Toothguide Training Box has not been investigated. Purpose. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the shade-matching ability of dental technician students and graduate dentists using the Vita 3D-Master shade guide. Material and methods. Twenty-nine dental technician students (DTS group) and 30 graduate dentists (GD group) participated in this study. The Toothguide Training Box (TTB) was used to train the participants and test their shade- matching abilities. Shade-matching ability was evaluated with 3 exercises and a final test, all of which are components of the TTB. The number of mistakes for each participant for value (L), chroma (c), and hue (h) were recorded during the exercises and the final test, and the mistake ratios were calculated. Color difference (DE) values for each shade were calculated from the L*, a*, and b* values of the Vita 3D-Master shade guide for each participant in both groups. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to determine statistically significant differences between the L, c, and h mistake ratios of the 2 groups, and the Student t test was used to determine statistically significant differences between the final test scores and the DE values of the groups (a¼.05). Results. The mistake ratio for L in the GD group was significantly higher than that of the DTS group (P<.05), whereas the mistake ratio for h in the DTS group was higher (P<.001). No significant differences were observed between the groups regarding the mistake ratios for c (P>.05). With regard to the final test scores and the DE values, no significant differences were found between the groups (P<.001), and the DTS group received higher scores than the GD group (912 and 851). The mean DE values for the DTS and GD groups were 1.72 and 2.92. Conclusions. DTSs made more mistakes in the h parameter than GDs, and GDs made more mistakes in the L parameter than DTSs. With regard to the final test scores and the DE values, DTSs were more successful in shade matching than GDs. (J Prosthet Dent 2014;112:1559-1566) Clinical Implications Shade-matching ability is not dependent on being an experienced dentist. Dental technician students provided with a theoretical education on proper shade selection can systematically develop the ability to perform shade selection successfully. Esthetic success depends on a close shade match between a dental resto- ration and the adjacent teeth and the adaptation of the restoration to the surrounding tissues. 1,2 Shade selection and shade duplication are the 2 phases of shade matching in clinical dentistry. 3 Both visual and instrumental methods can be used for shade selection. 4 Although other methods using color- imeters and spectrophotometers are available, these new devices cannot replace shade guides. 5,6 Among the various shade guides, the Vita Toothguide 3D-Master (VMG) (Vita Zahnfabrik) enables the user to systematically select tooth shades by determining their value, chroma, and hue in accordance with color science and human color perception. 7 Value denotes the lightness of a shade (the range from black to white, including all shades of gray) but provides no in- formation on color. Chroma provides a Associate Professor, Department of Dental Prosthetics Technology, Vocational School of Health Services, Marmara University. b Private practice, Istanbul, Turkey. c Assistant Professor, Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Marmara University. Sinmazisik et al