Own label materials: scientific evidence

While Dental Update has not exactly mounted a crusade against so-called ‘own label’ materials, it has tried, on a number of occasions,^1,2 to bring readers’ attention to the fact that own label materials have no (I almost wrote a paucity, but no is the correct word!) scientific evidence to back up their performance, or lack of it. We have pointed out that, for example, while £50 savings might be made by purchasing an own label brand of bonding agent, those savings will be nullified and more, by a premature failure of a restoration. An example being, in simplest terms, a prematurely de-bonded Class V restoration and a resulting unhappy patient or, more expensively, by a failed fit of a crown or bridge because of a lack of dimensional stability of an impression material. I daresay that the laboratory would be blamed!