J Clin Exp Dent. 2015;7(3):e387-91. Methods for diagnosing occlusal caries e387 Journal section: Operative Dentistry and Endodontics Publication Types: Research In vivo stu

Background: In recent years the early detection of such caries has gained importance, since it may avoid unneces-sary dental tissue damage and allow minimally invasive dental treatment. A study is made of 5 systems for diagno-sing caries: traditional visual and tactile methods, DIAGNOdent, VistaProof and CarieScan. Material and Methods: A prospective study was made in the Department of Stomatology, Dental Pathology and Therapeutics Teaching unit of the University of Valencia (Valencia, Spain), involving the analysis of 32 teeth (molars or premolars of both arches scheduled for filling or for use as posts in dental bridges) in 28 patients. The following caries diagnostic methods were applied: visual, tactile, DIAGNOdent (KAvo, Biberach, Germany), VistaProof (Dürr Dental AG, Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany) and CarieScan (IDMoS Dental Systems, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom). Fissurotomy was subsequently performed for histological validation. Results: Visual inspection showed an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC) of 0.75, with a sensitivity and specificity of 0.75. Tactile diagnosis in turn showed AUC = 0.714, with maximum sensitivity (100%) and a specificity of 42.9%. DIAGNOdent (cutoff point 22.5) and VistaProof (cutoff point 1.1) showed AUC = 0.969, while CarieScan (cutoff point 21.5) presented AUC = 0.973. These latter three methods all had a sensitivit