Sir, sadly, in our view, Mr Hassall's defence of his destructive overtreatment in the case he described in part two of his BDJ articles does him little credit.1 It was flawed by dubious assertions, an advertorial for Bioclear and sophistry about '360-degree veneers'. Our criticisms are reiterated, particularly about the elective gross destruction of residual intact tooth structure of mildly worn teeth, under the cover of increasing vertical dimension and allegedly improving the patient's appearance.2

Mr Hassall's diatribe has left his descriptive and diagnostic skills open to question. Figures 10 and 19 (BDJ 2021; 230: 86) show a local small gap between the moderately worn upper and lower incisors in ICP, but there were occlusal contacts on the canines and premolars which had minimal wear visible. The maxillary canines certainly did not appear to be suffering from 'hyperenamelosis', nor from 'ceramic deficiency' disease. Most sensible dentists would consider that such wear was trivial for a 58-year-old male (Fig. 19). There was no need to destroy the marginal ridges of any of those mainly sound anterior teeth for such questionable appearance changes, and certainly no reasons on TMD grounds3 (Fig. 22, BDJ 2021; 230: 87).

'Catch all' causes were trotted out as being 'multifactorial' and due to parafunction, abrasion, abfraction and erosion. Factually, there was no visual evidence of any cervical prisms having been broken off any of the upper anterior teeth palatally, which would be the absolute minimum prerequisite to confirm the ridiculous 'abfraction' belief of the occlusionista tribe.4

The localised wear and discolouration of the teeth might have suggested erosion with possible previous pipe smoking, or use of a localised anterior occlusal device of some sort and smoking. In any event, selective night-guard vital bleaching followed by additive direct bonding of the canines and premolars in the appropriate thickness and then by direct bonding of the incisors (in a decent thickness to stop it flexing) would have improved the appearance adequately.4 That additive approach would have accomplished the beneficial increase in anterior vertical dimension which, we agree, probably helped to get space for the restoration of the weak upper molar teeth.

The spurious term '360-degree veneer' is oxymoronic. It is a catchy but disingenuous marketing gimmick which is not valid, either scientifically or logically. We asked over 250 experienced dentists to view those preparations to give their opinions as to whether they were for veneers or crowns. The overwhelming majority called them crown preparations. Describing those proposed restorations as veneers is, at best, misleading and might be viewed, by some, as potentially deceptive.