Visual and tactile assessment of arrested initial enamel carious lesions: an in vivo pilot study

Accurate and reliable assessment of caries activity is important for determining appropriate treatment needs. The aim of this pilot study was to determine whether dentists could differentiate between the appearances (visual and tactile) of lesions inactivated by regular professional oral hygiene and those control lesions which were not cleaned (active). After a 3- to 4-week study period involving 10 children, with 4 similar carious lesions each, it was found that dentists were not able to reliably and reproducibly determine the subtle visual and tactile differences between active and inactive enamel lesions from a one-off clinical examination.