A Comparison of Two Types of Clinical Examinations: The Effect on Observed Caries Prevalence and Increments

¹ College of Dentistry, Ohio State University, Columbus; North Dakota State Department of Health, Bismark; and Division of Dental Research, Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, Ohio

The purpose of the study was to observe the effect of examination method on a caries increment when the same subjects are examined by two procedures. A group of one hundred and eleven college students was examined by two examiners using different methods of examinations. The slow-examination method showed a mean prevalence of 17.95 DMF teeth at the initial examination, whereas the rapid-examination method indicated a mean of 15.79 DMF teeth. Similarly, the slow-examination method showed 42.27 DMF surfaces per subject, and the rapid-examination method showed 36.54 DMF surfaces per subject.

One year after the initial determination of prevalence, the slow examination showed 0.88 new DMF teeth as a mean, while the rapid examination showed only 0.16 new DMF teeth as a mean. Similarly, the increment for DMF surfaces was 3.37 by the slow method compared with 1.62 by the fast method.

A division of findings into visual and radiographic observations revealed that the slower examiner found most of the diagnosed caries visually and made most of his borderline decisions visually, as expected. The rapid examiner found a smaller number of carious lesions visually but a greater number than the slow examiner when using the radiographs. The rapid examiner made more borderline decisions when examining the radiographs and, therefore, showed more reversals in diagnosis in the X-ray portion of the data.