Minimally invasive thin veneers: Esthetics and longevity

Ross W. Nash, DDS

Debra Engelhardt-Nash

In 1997, I placed eight porcelain laminate veneers for a young woman who wanted lighter teeth without whitening procedures. Her oral health was excellent, and I was able to use thin veneers bonded to enamel on minimally prepared teeth to achieve her goal. Vita shade A1 was chosen by the patient in 1997. She was excellent with her home care and made nearly all of her recare appointments during the following years.

In 2016, she decided that she wanted to replace her veneers with the new bleach-shaded materials available today. In Figure 1, you can see her veneers as they appeared after nineteen years. Note the excellent tissue health and minimal tissue recession. There was a small fracture in the disto-incisal corner of the right central incisor. The incisal view at this date can be seen in Figure 2.

The process

By carefully removing the veneers with fine diamond burs in a high-speed handpiece with water spray, I was able to minimize additional tooth structure removal, and no anesthetic was needed. Figure 3 shows the facial view after removal of the veneers. The incisal view can be seen in Figure 4. The patient decided that she wanted two additional veneers for her second premolars. Final impressions were taken, as well as a facebow record and occlusal registration. The patient chose Vita OM2 bleach shade as her desired color.

Figure 1: The patient’s porcelain laminate veneers placed in 1997 as seen in 2016