A study published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA) recently showed that tooth bleaching, whether performed in the clinic or at home, can effectively prolong the color retention time of resin-infiltrated white spots. The study also found that there was no significant difference in whitening effect and staining risk between clinic bleaching and home bleaching.
The research team artificially demineralized 60 caries-free third molars to create white spots, and then divided them into a control group and three test groups. All test groups received resin infiltration treatment, one group received clinic bleaching, and the other group received home bleaching.
All samples were stained by thermal cycling to simulate tooth aging and placed in coffee solution. After bleaching, the samples were bleached again accordingly, and the researchers recorded tooth color changes at 10 time points in the experiment.
The results showed that both clinic bleaching and home bleaching could restore the color of resin-infiltrated white spots to a level close to the baseline level before treatment, and the effects of the two were comparable.
The study pointed out that although patients responded well to whitening treatment, color stability was still limited in a staining environment, suggesting that further exploration of strategies to maintain long-term effects is needed.
In addition, the July issue of JADA also covers the latest research results on deep local anesthesia, artificial intelligence-assisted diagnosis, and changes in proximal caries during orthodontic treatment.