Diagnostic accuracy, available treatment, and diagnostic methods of dental caries in practice: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Diagnosis of dental caries and identification of patients with dental caries is the biggest challenge in dentistry. For this diagnostic accuracy, several methods are studied. The present study attempts to re-study the published data in the last 50 years, between 1960 and 2020. Main body: Based on designed keywords, we made a thorough search of 4 different databases and found 3887 articles after removing the duplicate. The included database was PubMed, Ovid, Web of Science, and Cochrane library. On keen screening of the articles, we included 19 articles in the review. All the articles were analyzed based on the Cochrane risk assessment method. Maximum studies of up to 80% of caries management are based on children from 1 to 10 years of age. About 47% of articles were found based on reported use of drugs against dental caries, whereas 52.6% of articles were based on the behavioral and socio-demographic study of the mother and caretakers. We found that attentive parents and caretakers of the children can help in reducing the prevention of caries. Frese et al. (Sci Rep. 8(1):16991, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34777-x), Liu et al. (PLoS ONE 8(11):e78723, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0078723), and Innes et al. J Dent Res 99(1):36–43, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022034519888882) were the studied articles with high quality and low bias risk. These methods were based on the use of stannous fluoride for dental caries, the study of the effect of smoking on older adults, by checking the anxiety level of the participants. Short conclusions: Tooth decay is a common condition in the general population and affects mostly children. The method with high accuracy and low risk can be recommended for routine treatment.