Laser fluorescence on dental caries detection under epidemiological setting

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate reproducibility of visual exam under artificial lighting (VI) and DIAGNOdent™ (DD) exams, their validity and their association (VI+DD) in examining occlusal dental surfaces under epidemiological setting. Methods: One hundred and sixty five 12-year-old schoolchildren from public schools from Piracicaba, SP, Brazil, were examined under epidemiological setting using different diagnostic criteria (D1, D1+D3 and D3). Kappa statistics was adopted for reproducibility study, while sensibility, specificity and accuracy were adopted for validity study. Results: The intra/interexaminer Kappa for VI and DD exams at D1, D3 and D1+D3 criteria were 0.88/0.82 and 0.04/0.18, 0.91/0.85 and 0.36/0.35, 0.88/0.83 and 0.30/0.32, respectively. The VI was the most accurate exam at D1 (A=87.38%) and D1+D3 (A=82.45%) criteria, while VI+DD was the most accurate exam at D3 criterion (A=75.29%). Conclusions: Initial caries lesions can be satisfactorily detected by VI exam, while DD exam improved the VI exam sensitivity at D1 and D3 diagnostic criteria under epidemiological setting.