Ten-year outcome of porcelain laminate veneers placed within the general dental services in England and Wales

AIM: It is the aim of this paper to consider the factors associated with the need for re-intervention on teeth restored with porcelain veneers. METHODS: A data set was established consisting of adult patients (18 years or older) whose restoration records contained the placement of one or more porcelain laminate veneers. For each tooth treated with a porcelain veneer, the subsequent history of intervention on that tooth was consulted, and the next date of intervention, if any could be found in the extended data set, was obtained. Thus a data set was created of porcelain veneers which have been placed, with their dates of placement and their dates, if any, of re-intervention. RESULTS: Data for over 80,000 different adult patients were analysed, of whom 46% were male and 54% female. A total of 2562 porcelain veneer restoration occasions in 1177 patients were obtained from the data over a period of 11 years. Factors which were found to influence the survival of porcelain veneers include patient gender, patient age, changing dentist, patient's treatment need, patient charge-paying status and geographical area. CONCLUSIONS: While dentist factors do not appear to play a part, a variety of patient factors have been found to influence veneer survival to re-intervention. Overall, 53% of porcelain veneers in the study survived without re-intervention at 10 years.