Table 3.
Sensitivity and specificity of various diagnostic aids for caries lesion detection[27,31,34,44,45,46,50,62]
| Sensitivity | Specificity | |
|---|---|---|
| Visual inspection | ||
| For cavitated occlusal lesions | 0.62 | 0.93 |
| For noncavitated occlusal lesion | 0.12 | 0.93 |
| For approximal cavitated lesion | 0.12–0.50 | 0.99 |
| Visual inspection + probe | ||
| For noncavitated occlusal lesion in dentin | 0.14 | 0.93 |
| For cavitated occlusal lesion in dentin | 0.82 | 0.93 |
| For approximal cavitated lesion | 0.12–0.50 | 0.99 |
| Visual inspection in ICDAS | ||
| For enamel and dentinal lesions | 0.73 | 0.91 |
| For dentinal lesions only | 0.83 | 0.94 |
| Bite-wing radiograph | ||
| For noncavitated fissure caries | 0.45 | 0.83 |
| For cavitated occlusal lesion in dentin | 0.79 | 0.83 |
| For approximal enamel lesion | 0.29 | |
| For approximal dentinal lesion | 0.23 | 1.00 |
| Direct digital radiography | ||
| For occlusal enamel lesions | 0.24–0.31 | 0.72–0.80 |
| For proximal enamel lesions | 0.35 | 0.80 |
| For occlusal dentinal lesions | 0.21–0.69 | 0.84–0.97 |
| For proximal dentinal lesions | 0.16–0.52 | 0.95–0.96 |
| FOTI | ||
| For occlusal surface | 0.13 | 0.99 |
| For approximal enamel lesion | 0.19 | |
| For approximal dentinal lesion | 0.68 | 0.99 |
| DIFOTI | ||
| For smooth surface lesions | 0.43 | 0.87 |
| For occlusal lesions | 0.67 | 0.87 |
| For approximal lesions | 0.56 | 0.76 |
| Diagnodent | ||
| For occlusal dentinal caries | 0.76 | 0.87 |
| For occlusal enamel caries | 0.42 | 0.95 |
| ECM | ||
| For enamel caries | 0.70–0.92 | 0.78–1.00 |
| For dentinal caries | 0.39–0.97 | 0.56–0.98 |