Spanning the Horizon of Accuracy of Different Intraoral Radiographic Modalities: A Systematic Review

This study was conducted with an aim to systematically review the literature for assessing the accuracy of intraoral radiographs in detection of dental caries.

Despite the advancements in oral disease science, dental caries continues to be a worldwide health concern, affecting humans of all ages. Correct diagnosis of caries is critical both in clinical practice as well as in epidemiology and radiography are worthwhile adjunct for a thorough examination.

A literature review was performed in PubMed Central and Cochrane library, Embase, and Google Scholar, and these databases were searched up to 2016. The primary outcome measure was to assess the accuracy of intraoral radiographs in the detection of dental caries based on sensitivity and specificity. The sensitivity for conventional radiographs for the detection of lesions in enamel (16-68%) and dentin (16-96%) was found to be superior as compared with other modalities of digital radiography, whereas the specificity of digital radiography was found to be superior in detection of lesion in enamel (77-96%) and dentin (84-100%) when compared with conventional radiography. Sensitivity of conventional radiographs was noted to be superior as compared with digital radiography, whereas in terms of specificity, digital was found to be superior to conventional radiographs.

Although there was no significant difference between digital and conventional radiography in the diagnosis of caries, conventional radiographs were able to detect carious lesion, in general, but for lesion to be detected precisely, digital was found to be superior.

As digital radiography produces lower ionizing radiation, dental professionals should employ this method in their routine dental practice for diagnosing and treating carious lesions.