When a Defective Restoration Is Not a Failed Tooth: Rethinking Reintervention, Risk, and Repair in Posterior Composite Dentistry

Posterior resin composite has become the default restorative choice for tooth-coloured, adhesive, relatively conservative treatment. Its rise has not eliminated a familiar clinical dilemma: when a restoration deteriorates — through fracture, secondary caries, marginal breakdown, wear or discolouration — should the clinician monitor, repair, or replace it? That decision governs how much sound tooth structure survives, how much treatment a patient accumulates over a lifetime, and how a tooth's restorative trajectory unfolds. Longevity, in other words, is not a property of the material; it is the product of technique, biology and behaviour interacting over time.