Assessing the Risk of Developing Carious Lesions in Root Surfaces

Patients' susceptibility to coronal and root caries (RC) is modulated by a range of biological, environmental, social, psychological, and behavior-related factors. These factors, considered either in isolation or combined into specific models, contribute to the overall patient susceptibility/risk of new lesion occurrence and/or of existing lesion progression, allowing the oral healthcare team to define specific and individualized preventive and curative regimens. Various caries susceptibility/risk assessment (CRA) protocols/models have been developed to assist the oral healthcare practitioner/team in a logical systematic approach to synthesize information about the caries disease process with its multifactorial etiology. These protocols/models consider caries susceptibility/risk in general without any specific localization of the caries process; none of them specifically consider the risk of developing carious lesions in root surfaces. This chapter aims to discuss CRA related to RC lesions in terms of prediction of both the occurrence of new RC lesions and of continuing progression of existing lesions.