Given the limited evidence regarding the blending performance of single-shade resin composites with ceramic materials, this study aimed to investigate whether a single-shade resin composite can achieve superior color blending with hybrid ceramics compared to conventional multi-shade resin composites. Omnichroma (OM) was used as the single-shade resin composite, while Filtek Z250 (FI), Estelite Σ Quick (ES), and Ceram X SphereTEC One (CE) in A1–A4 shades served as multi-shade resin composites. Amber Mill in A1–A3.5 shades were selected for hybrid ceramic blocks. The experiment was conducted in two phases: (1) the multi-shade resin composite shade most closely matching OM was determined using spectrophotometric color coordinate analysis, and (2) cavities in hybrid ceramic blocks were filled with OM and the selected multi-shade resin composites. The color differences (ΔE00) between the resin composites and hybrid ceramics were measured, and the translucency parameters of the resin composites were evaluated. Statistical comparisons were performed using one-way and two-way ANOVA and Bonferroni test for post-hoc analysis (α = 0.05). Additionally, the filler morphology of the resin composites was examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A3 shade exhibited the smallest color difference (ΔE00) from OM across all multi-shade resin composites. OM exhibited significantly lower ΔE00 values (range: 5.7–7.8) across all hybrid ceramic shades compared to the multi-shade resin composites (p < 0.05). Spectrophotometric analysis confirmed that OM’s individual color coordinates (L*, a*, and b*) were closer to those of the hybrid ceramics. Additionally, OM showed the highest translucency among the tested resins (p < 0.05), reinforcing the correlation between translucency and blending performance. SEM revealed differences in filler morphology across resin composites. OM contained uniformly distributed 260 nm spherical fillers. ES exhibited smaller (~ 160 nm) spherical fillers, while FI and CE showed a heterogeneous distribution of filler sizes with clustering. The single-shade resin composite demonstrated a relatively enhanced color blending effect with hybrid ceramics compared to multi-shade resin composites. However, as all ΔE₀₀ values exceeded established clinical acceptability thresholds, the findings reflect relative differences in optical behavior rather than clinically imperceptible color matching.
Lee et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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