PERFORMANCE OF DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEMS IN OCCLUSAL CARIES DETECTION COMPARED

Many investigations have been conducted to evaluate existing and new d iagnostic systems in the detection of occlusal carious lesions. The pe rformances of these systems are difficult to compare with each other, because of the disadvantages associated with the widely used validity parameters sensitivity and specificity. In this study a meta-analysis was performed to facilitate a comparison between the performances of d iagnostic systems which are currently in use in occlusal caries diagno sis Nine in vitro studies and one in vivo study complied with the sele cted criteria for inclusion in the analysis. The sensitivity and speci ficity values obtained from these studies were converted into normal d eviate values, and plotted on linearly scaled normal-deviate axes. D(z ) values, which quantify the performance above chance of a diagnostic test in one single value, were calculated. Averaged D(z) values of the diagnostic systems were subsequently compared to each other. The resu lts indicate that electrical resistance measurements and fiber-optic t ransillumination had a comparatively good, and visual inspection and x eroradiography a poor, performance in occlusal caries diagnosis. All t he other radiographic image modalities had intermediate performances.