Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of using viewing box and magnifier in diagnosing primary caries, secondary caries, marginal adaptation of crowns, periapical pathoses and retained root tips on periapical and panoramic radiographs. Methods: 316 periapical and 52 panoramic radiographs, which were randomly selected, were evaluated by the same observer twice by using viewing box and magnifier and twice in the room light with naked eye with four weeks intervals. Kapa statistics were used to evaluate the intra-observer agreement between the observations and Mc Nemar test was used to evaluate the difference between the results of the two observation methods. Results: In periapical radiographs, there was a %16.74 increase and in panoramic radiographs there was a %12.01 increase in the total number of lesions detected when examined with viewing box and magnifier. The kappa values for intra-observer agreements were between 0.4771 to 0.8751 (moderate to almost perfect) for periapical radiographs and 0.4934 to 0.9356 (moderate to almost perfect) for the observed pathoses. Mc Nemar results with Yate's correction for periapical radiographs were between 0.0013 and 0.4237, and 0.0014 and 1 for panoramic radiographs for the observed pathoses. There was only statistically significant difference in periapical lesion (p=0.0233) and seconder caries (0.0013) detection on periapical radiographs, and in seconder caries detection (0.0014) on panoramic radiographs between the two observation techniques. Conclusions: We can conclude that evaluating periapical and panoramic radiographs with viewing box and magnifier increases the number of lesions detected; but this increase reaches a statistically significant level only in detection of periapical lesion and seconder caries on periapical radiographs and seconder caries on panoramic radiographs.

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