Diagnodent and VistaCam may be unsuitable for the evaluation of dental caries in archeological teeth.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to compare the usefulness of fluorescence-based caries detection systems (Diagnodent and VistaCam) for the assessment of carious lesions on archeological molars.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study material consisted of teeth from the Cemetery of St. Mary Magdalene (Cmentarz św. Marii Magdaleny) in Wrocław, Poland. A sample of 178 permanent molars from 38 skulls were examined. Five surfaces of teeth (occlusal, mesial, distal, buccal, and lingual) were assessed on either basically cleaned or sandblasted teeth. Six diagnostic methods were used to detect carious lesions: the visual classification of the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS II), fluorescent methods (Diagnodent and VistaCam), X-ray, cone beam computed tomography and histological sections. The sensitivity and specificity of the methods were determined using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and the correlation between the severity of dental caries and the readouts obtained with each method.

RESULTS: In most cases, Diagnodent and VistaCam yielded unsatisfactory specificity and sensitivity values. The area under curve (AUC) values in ROC curves for Diagnodent and Vistacam were lower than the AUC values obtained for the ICDAS II visual classification.

CONCLUSIONS: According to our results, in the case of archeological teeth, neither Diagnodent nor VistaCam can be regarded as a better diagnostic method than the ICDAS II visual classification of caries.