Clinicians currently have several tools available to aid in diagnosing caries. The earlier caries is detected, the sooner preventive measures may be implemented. Objective: The goal of this study was to assess the ability of DIAGNOdent^TM (KaVo America) and Quantitative Light Induced Fluorescence (Inspektor Research Systems BV) to detect early, artificial caries in enamel. Methods: Fifty-six extracted caries-free human third molars were cleaned and kept moist until use. All surfaces were painted with an acid resistant varnish, except for a 1x7mm window. Baseline measurements were obtained using DIAGNOdent and QLF. Artificial caries were created by suspending the teeth in a demineralizing solution for 24,48,72,96,120,168 or 240hrs at a pH of 4.60. The samples were re-evaluated as before and baseline measurements were compared to the measurements following demineralization. The teeth were sectioned longitudinally through the window area and lesion depths were measured and recorded using polarized light microscopy (PLM). Lesion depths ranged from 30 to 300 µm. Results: Correlations between PLM lesion depth, DIAGNOdent “scores” and the QLF measures of DF and DQ were calculated. The best correlation (-0.71) was observed between PLM lesion depths and the DIAGNOdent “scores”. Correlations between PLM and QLF ranged from -0.42 for the DQ measure of lesion volume to -0.54 for the DF measure of percent fluorescence loss. Correlations greater than ±0.26 were significantly different from zero at p£0.05. Conclusions: Both systems were able to detect early lesions under these conditions, however, QLF detected very small lesions (<60µm) better when compared to baseline. DIAGNOdent was more effective in distinguishing the difference between lesions of varying depths but did not detect very small lesions when compared to baseline values. This study was supported by NIH/NIDCR grant PO1 DE13540.

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Back to the 81st General Session of the International Association for Dental Research (June 25-28, 2003)

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