Validation of a Swiss method of caries prediction in Dutch children

Objective: This study aimed to validate a caries prediction method, the Den toprog-Method, which was developed on Swiss children. Method: A Dutch child population was used for validation. The diagnosis of caries, age of the ch ildren and the caries experience were slightly different from the populatio n from which the Dentoprog-Method was developed. With the Dentoprog-Method, Dutch children were ranked in increasing order of high caries risk probabi lity. The measure of prediction was expressed in sensitivity and specificit y which were calculated at 10% risk probability intervals for each class of "high" caries increment and for different forecast periods. ROC curves pre senting sensitivity as a function of (100-specificity) were employed to sum marize the obtained information. The area under the ROC curve was used as a measure of predictive accuracy. Results: The area under the ROC curves for various caries increment classes of 7.5-year-old and 9.5-year-old Dutch ch ildren was in the range of the area under the ROC curves of Swiss children. Conclusion: This analysis indicated that the Dentoprog-Method when applied on a sample of Dutch children was robust enough to overcome small differen ces in caries diagnosis, age and caries experience.