Report Management Thresholds for Molars With Occlusal Noncavitated Caries Lesions

Aim: There is sparse research on the effect of factors related to the dentist and patient in the caries management decision-making process. This in vitro study explored the influ-ence of factors related to dentists and patients on the management decision of occlusal noncavitated caries lesions in children.Materials and methods: Five investigators in the specialties of dental public health (DPH), paediatric, prosthetic, and operative dentistry and a general dentist (GDP) participated in this study. Initially, the investigators were asked to independently assess the occlusal sur-faces of 175 noncavitated permanent molars and choose a management recommendation using 2 caries risk patients' scenarios. After 1 month, investigators were trained and cali-brated to use the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) scoring system. Then, they examined the same teeth, recorded the highest/worst ICDAS score, and chose a management recommendation. Two weeks later, the investigators repeated the teeth examination using magnification loupes and again chose a management recommen-dation. The teeth were sectioned to study the relationship between the presence of caries and the management recommendations.Results: For the low- and the high-caries risk scenarios, ICDAS training increased the oper-ative intervention by 20% to 27% and 14% to 22%, respectively, for both the GDP and the paediatric dentist (P < .0001). For the low-caries risk scenario, using the magnifying loupes increased the operative recommendations for the DPH, GDP, and the operative dentist by 5% to 23% (P < .05). Compared to the low-caries risk scenario, teeth for patients with high caries risk received more surgical interventions (9%-30%) at all examination conditions for the GDP and the paediatric and operative dentists (P < .0001).Conclusions: For occlusal noncavitated caries lesions, enhancing dentists' caries detection skills had a significant impact on decisions of surgical intervention. This also influenced the appropriateness of the treatment recommended for the different caries risk groups.(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of FDI World Dental Federation. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Automated summary

This study explored the influence of factors related to dentists and patients on the decision-making process of dental treatment. The results showed that improving dentists' caries detection skills had a significant impact on decisions of surgical intervention and also influenced the appropriateness of the treatment recommended for different caries risk groups.