Visual caries detection (ICDAS visual/visual-tactile inspection) vs Reference standard (often histological; also invasive opening): All occlusal carious lesions
Pooled specificity for visual detection of all occlusal lesions was 0.770 (95% CI 0.73 to 0.81).
What each review found
Include earlier review versions| Finding | Effect | Studies | GRADE certainty |
|---|---|---|---|
Visual caries detection vs Reference standard (often histological; also invasive opening) All occlusal carious lesions · Permanent molar surfaces in diagnostic accuracy studies (mostly in vitro; clinical) · Egypt public health clinic, Tailored meta-analysis (Egypt) Pooled specificity for visual detection of all occlusal lesions was 0.770 (95% CI 0.73 to 0.81). Visual and radiographic caries detection: a tailored meta-analysis for two different settings, Egypt and… (2018) All outcomes | Specificity 77.0 [73, 81] | 51 studies | GRADE not reported |
Visual caries detection vs Reference standard (often histological; also invasive opening) All occlusal carious lesions · Permanent molar surfaces in diagnostic accuracy studies (mostly in vitro; clinical) · All included studies, Conventional meta-analysis (all studies) Pooled specificity for visual detection of all occlusal lesions was 0.753 (95% CI 0.70 to 0.80). Visual and radiographic caries detection: a tailored meta-analysis for two different settings, Egypt and… (2018) All outcomes | Specificity 75.3 [70, 80] | 67 studies | GRADE not reported |
Findings are shown side by side, never pooled across reviews.
The reviews
| Review | Searched up to | Included studies | AMSTAR 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visual and radiographic caries detection: a tailored meta-analysis for two different settings, Egypt and Germany. 2018 All outcomes | Not specified (data reused from two source systematic reviews, Gimenez 2015 and Schwendicke 2015) | 2 | Not applicable |
Studies behind the findings
None of these reviews ties its included studies to this outcome in the data here. Cochrane reviews and reviews with headline outcomes only do not list their studies yet.
How reviews are matched to this question
Reviews word the same question differently. Four decision models (TypeSafe's Jev, Liquid AI's d1-ultra, SubQ Snap and Baseten's Elephant) judged each wording of the population, intervention, comparator and outcome against the others; two wordings count as the same when at least three of them agree and none clearly disagrees, and findings count as this question only when all four elements match. Timing, setting and subgroup never split a question: they are shown on each finding.