An In Vivo Comparison of Two Diagnostic Methods in Secondary Caries Detection

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the level of agreement between four op- erators with different levels of experience for two methods of detecting secondary enamel and dentin carious lesions in composite restored teeth. Materials and Methods: Sixty teeth of 40 patients with with secondary carious lesions in the composite resin were selected. The teeth were examined by two methods; visual in- spection and a laser fluorescence device (DIAGNO dent pen 2190) by four operators in- cluding an undergraduate student, a dentist with 5 years of clinical experience, a general dentist with 12 years of clinical experience and an oral and maxillofacial radiologist. Co- hen's kappa statistic was applied in order to assess the agreement between the diagnoses performed by the four operators with each diagnostic method. Results: The diagnosis performed by different operators achieved an excellent agreement Corresponding author: N. Chiniforush, Department of Laser Research Center of Den- tistry, School of Dentistry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran n-chiniforush@farabi.tums.ac.ir Received: 14 July 2013 Accepted: 6 October 2013 with high ICC. Conclusion: DIAGNOdent can be a useful device for secondary caries detection in poste- rior teeth as an adjunct to visual examination