Dental Caries
Conditions
Keywords
Assessment, Questionable Caries
Brief summary
The purpose of this study was to investigate the process involved when making decisions about the diagnosis and treatment of questionable lesions, as well as determine if there is any association between lesions progression (or depth, if opened) and clinical characteristics and baseline risk assessment.
Detailed description
The termquestionable is defined as a tooth with no cavitation (no continuity break in the enamel) and no radiographic radiolucencies, but the presence of caries is suspected due to roughness, surface opacities, or staining. The characteristics of these lesions and the patient's baseline caries risk were examined. There have been very few studies regarding questionable lesions, virtually no clinical evaluations of the progression of questionable lesions over time, and no studies depicting the prevalence of these lesions. Since carious lesions have the ability to arrest and possibly reverse, determining how often these lesions are being seen in practice and learning more about their characteristics and patient risk assessment are important steps in order to manage these lesions without unnecessary surgical intervention.
Interventions
None listed
Sponsors
HealthPartners Institute
Kaiser Permanente
Permanente Dental Associates Group, Oregon
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)
Dental Practice-Based Research Network
Study design
Observational model
COHORT
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
6 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* patients needed to have at least one permanent tooth with a questionable lesion. This means that subjects were at least 6 years old because that is when the permanent first molar typically erupts.
Exclusion criteria
* patients under 6 years old * patients 6 years old and older who do not have a questionable lesion
Countries
Denmark, United States
Outcome results
None listed