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A comparison of clinical and photographic scoring using the TF and modified DDE indices
1School of Dentistry, St Chad's Queensway, Birmingham, UK.
Objective:
To compare the results of recording enamel opacities using the TF and modified DDE indices.
Design:
Enamel opacities on the maxillary central incisors were recorded two weeks apart. On the first occasion scoring was according to the criteria of the TF index and on the second occasion the modified DDE index was used. An intraoral colour slide photograph was taken of the teeth of each subject and these were scored on two occasions in random order, first using the TF index and secondly using the modified DDE index.
Subjects:
Three hundred and twenty-five 9-year-old children who were life time residents in an area where the domestic water was fluoridated at one part per million.
Results:
Agreement between clinical and photograph scoring was good for both TF and modified DDE indices, Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficients being 0.77 and 0.69 respectively. There was also good agreement between the distribution of scores for the two indices as indicated by Coefficients of 0.75 for clinical scores and 0.76 for photographic scores.
Conclusions:
There was good agreement between the TF and modified DDE indices when recording the distribution of milder types of enamel opacities in a population of 9-year-old children.