[Caries treatment strategy. 'Tip the balance'--drilling or not drilling]

Traditionally caries treatment strategy has been based on the detection of caries lesions, and directed to a restorative procedure whereby the detected defects were filled. However, the detection of lesions is not synonymous to caries diagnosis. The main purpose of caries diagnosis should be the determination of the caries activity. The diagnosis is based on several parameters, which are evaluated by an intellectual process in a dentally trained mind. The treatment should be confined, in the first instance, to stopping the caries process, and to tipping the balance in the right direction, so that the caries can cure or anyway is prevented from extending. The treatment philosophy has to be pointed to a general approach of the disease caries in the patient who it concerns on the one side, and to a local approach of individual lesions on the other hand. In the second case a lesion can be treated in a symptomatic, invasive manner or, even better, by causal, not-invasive treatment.