S？L？KON YüZ PROTEZLER？N？N DER？ ？LE RENK UYUMUNUN SA？LANMASINDA D？J？TAL Y？NTEM？N G？RSEL DE？ERLEND？R？LMES？/ Visual Evaluation of Digital Method Used for Color Matching Between Silicone Facial Prostheses and Skin

Auricular, nasal, orbital, and surrounding defects prevent people fitting into society and sometimes cause psychological problems for the patients. Facial prostheses help the patient to get better psychologically and join the social life. For natural appearance, facial prostheses are required to be similar with surrounding skin with regard to color and translucency. The aim of this study is the visual evaluation of computer aided digital method used for color matching between silicone facial prostheses and skin. In the study, first of all, “reference color” silicones were formed. 4 different “Reference color” silicones were formed by mixing the paints related to the silicone in the transparent form. Each reference color was measured using the vehicle spectrocolorimeter of the system and a silicone coloring was performed according to the code number given by spectrocolorimeter. These silicones were labelled as “final color”. Similarity of each reference color and final color silicone was assessed by 22 doctoral/speciality students visually. Data were evaluated using Chi square test. Evaluation of digital method used for color matching between silicone facial prostheses and skin were performed by a total of 22 doctoral/speciality students (17 women/5 men) whose ages were ranging between 24-32 (mean 27±2.3). Evaluation results; shows that similarity score for the first color pair is enough or weak, for the second, third and forth color pair the similarity is generally enough and satisfactory. As a result of Chi-square test, it was observed that there were no meaningful difference between women and men given similarity scores for each color pair (P>0.05). The results of the present study evaluating computer aided digital method used for color matching between silicone facial prostheses and skin revealed that visual similarity of reference color and final color silicones were satisfactory or good.