Objective: To evaluate the performance of visual inspection alone and associated to radiographic and laser fluorescence (LF) methods in detecting non-evident caries lesions at adolescents' proximal surfaces.
Materials and methods: Adolescents (12 to 17 years old) were assessed for the presence of caries lesions through visual inspection, radiographic examination, and LF method (DIAGNOdent pen), at non-cavitated (NC) and cavitated lesion (CAV) thresholds. Temporary separation with orthodontic rubbers followed by direct visual inspection was the reference standard method. Two examiners conducted the examinations, and the first examiner reassessed around 20% of the sample, to evaluate inter- and intra-examiner reproducibility, respectively. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and utility values were calculated for the methods alone and combined with visual inspection using two different strategies: simultaneous and sequential combination.
Results: A total of 834 proximal surfaces (51 adolescents) were included. Visual inspection presented higher reproducibility values (higher than 0.98). Moreover, visual inspection presented higher sensitivity (around 0.51) than those obtained with other diagnostic strategies (varying from 0.09 to 0.20) at the NC threshold. For CAV, visual inspection presented higher specificity (0.996) than the sequential association with adjunct methods (around 0.97), but with lower sensitivity. Accuracy and utility values for combined strategies were similar or lower than those achieved with the visual inspection performed alone.
Conclusion: Visual inspection alone performs better for detecting caries lesions in premolars and molars of adolescents than other diagnostic strategies.
Clinical relevance: The best diagnostic strategy for caries detection of proximal caries lesions in adolescents is the visual inspection alone.
Keywords: Accuracy studies; Adolescents; Caries detection; Proximal surfaces; Sensitivity; Specificity.