Dentists' Ability to Identify Tooth Resorption on Radiographic Images and Their Preferences for Terminology

Tooth resorption has no universal classification, which leads to confusion. The aims were to assess dentists' ability to radiographically identify resorption and to determine their terminology preferences for three types of resorption.

Dentists completed an electronic questionnaire. Part 1 concerned professional profiles plus self-rating of each participant's level of resorption knowledge. In Part 2, participants identified types of resorption from radiographs. In Part 3, participants chose their preferred terminology and provided reasons for their choices.

Of 444 complete responses, 55.6% of participants self-rated their knowledge as 'Acceptable'. The average number of correct responses when identifying resorption was 52.9% (6.3 out of 12; range: 0-12). Significant differences existed for gender, practice area, graduation year and education level. Preferred terms were external inflammatory resorption (72.3%) and external replacement resorption (63.3%) but no clear preference existed for external invasive resorption (31.8%) or external cervical invasive resorption (35.6%). Most common reasons for selecting terms were 'more descriptive', and a 'more accurate representation of what occurs in the tissues'.

On average, dentists correctly identified 52.9% of the resorptive defects. There is a need for a standardised classification of the different types of tooth resorption.