Tooth Wear: Interaction between Physical and Chemical Tooth Substance Loss

While ETW is the physical result of frequent contact between acids and the tooth surface, abrasion is a non-physiological wearing away of the mineralized tooth substance through mechanical processes involving substances repeatedly contacting the teeth. However, ETW hardly occurs alone; softening (demineralization) of the mineralized tooth substance by acidic challenge (erosive agent) decreases the wear resistance of the surface, thus rendering it more susceptible to abrasion from either the surrounding oral soft tissues, through food mastication or tooth-brushing.