In-office and walking bleach dental treatments on endodontically-treated teeth: 25 years follow-up

Background Many techniques have been evolved for the purpose of managing discoloured non-vital tooth such as dental bleaching, restorative and prosthetic treatment. In order to achieve better control on the patients, in-office and intra-coronal bleaching procedures were introduced in clinical practice. Such techniques usually use higher whitening agent concentrations activated by means of heat or light sources, resulting in improved color stability in the long term. The aim of this study was to evaluate the color stability, after 25 years, of endodontically-treated teeth subjected to in-office and walking bleach dental treatments with carbamide peroxide. Methods A population of patients with a single endodontic treatment on an incisor teeth was recruited. All the teeth selected for the study were subjected to both in-office intra-coronal dental bleaching and walking bleach technique with 10% carbamide peroxide gel. The patients were recalled at follow-up every 12 months for a total observational period of 25 years. Results After 25 years of clinical service on 40 patients, an optimal tooth color stability in relation to adjacent teeth was evidenced in 34 patients, while 6 patients were classified as failures, since a color mismatch of two or more shades were noticed. Consequently, a success rate of 85% was reported after 25 years. Conclusions Ten percent carbamide peroxide proved to be an effective dental whitening agent in the long-term for endodontically-treated.