An in vitro comparison of the ability of fibre-optic transillumination, visual inspection and radiographs to detect occlusal caries and evaluate lesion depth

The aim of this study was to compare the performance of fibre-optic transil lumination (FOTI), visual inspection and bite-wing radiographs to detect oc clusal caries and estimate the lesion depth. Fifty-nine extracted molars we re assessed using FOTI and visual examination by 4 trained examiners and 1 examiner evaluated the bitewing radiographs. Histological validation was pe rformed using 250-mum sections examined with a stereomicroscope. For the th ree methods, the correlation between the lesion depth and the histological scores varied from 0.65 to 0.73. For dentinal caries detection, the areas u nder ROC curves ranged from 0.83 to 0.87. The radiographic method was poor at detecting lesions confined to enamel. FOTI, visual inspection and radiog raphs showed a good correlation with the histology but had difficulty in di stinguishing lesions located deep in enamel or in the outer third of dentin e. FOTI was shown to be as accurate as a detailed visual inspection in dete cting occlusal caries. Copyright (C) 2000 S. Karger AG. Basel.