Colour clinical examination (visual shade categorization: yellow, light brown, dark brown, black) vs Hardness clinical examination (tactile texture categorization: soft, medium/leathery, hard)
Discriminant power for caries severity: effect size (f) for microbial load (log10 CFU) between lesion categories · Patients with dentine carious lesions (deciduous/permanent teeth; children and adults)
The weighted effect size favoured hardness (f=2.62) over colour (f=0.46) for discriminating microbial load, supporting hardness as the more reliable examination (ungraded).
1 finding from 1 review
- Reliability of colour and hardness clinical examinations in detecting dentine caries severity: a systematic review and… 2019 All outcomesEffect size (f) colour f=0.46; hardness f=2.625 studiesGRADE not reported