Managing Carious Lesions: Consensus Recommendations on Terminology

Variation in the terminology used to describe clinical management of carious lesions has contributed to a lack of clarity in the scientific literature and beyond. In this article, the International Caries Consensus Collaboration presents 1) issues around terminology, a scoping review of current words used in the literature for caries removal techniques, and 2) agreed terms and definitions, explaining how these were decided.Dental cariesis the name of the disease, and thecarious lesionis the consequence and manifestation of the disease-the signs or symptoms of the disease. The termdental caries managementshould be limited to situations involving control of the disease through preventive and noninvasive means at a patient level, whereascarious lesion managementcontrols the disease symptoms at the tooth level. While it is not possible to directly relate the visual appearance of carious lesions' clinical manifestations to the histopathology, we have based the terminology around the clinical consequences of disease (soft, leathery, firm, and hard dentine). Approaches to carious tissue removal are defined: 1)selective removal of carious tissue-includingselective removal to soft dentineandselective removal to firm dentine; 2)stepwise removal-including stage 1,selective removal to soft dentine, and stage 2,selective removal to firm dentine6 to 12 mo later; and 3)nonselective removal to hard dentine-formerly known ascomplete caries removal(technique no longer recommended). Adoption of these terms, around managing dental caries and its sequelae, will facilitate improved understanding and communication among researchers and within dental educators and the wider clinical dentistry community.