Findings

What do systematic reviews say?

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Evidence found and GRADE certainty

335 questions · 406 findings · 23 reviews

No studies found 93 · 22.9%GRADE not reported 166 · 40.9%Very low 66 · 16.3%Low 65 · 16%Moderate 14 · 3.4%High 2 · 0.5%

Analogue (conventional) radiographs vs Digital radiographs (direct within-person / paired comparison); reference standard: histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination

Sensitivity for detection and diagnosis of early (enamel) caries · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
2 findings from 1 review

Canary System (Quantum Dental Technologies; red fluorescence, scale 0-100) vs Reference standard: histology, enhanced visual examination with or without radiographs, or excavation

Outcome not reported · Children or adults presenting asymptomatically or suspected of having enamel caries (in vivo/clinical studies); extracted teeth of…

The review found no eligible studies for this question.

1 finding from 1 review

Fluoride-releasing resin-based sealant vs No sealant (control/no treatment)

Development of >=1 new carious lesion (caries incidence) · Children with caries-free or non-cavitated carious lesion primary molars, aged 3-7 years (paediatric department, dental hospital, France)
2 findings from 1 review

Glass ionomer-based sealant vs No sealant (control/no treatment)

Development of >=1 new carious lesion (caries incidence) · Children with caries-free primary first molars (with or without caries on other teeth), aged 1-5 years (paediatric clinic/dental school,…

Glass ionomer-based sealant may leads to lower development of >=1 new carious lesion (caries incidence) compared with no sealant (low certainty).

2 findings from 1 review

Fluoride-releasing resin-based sealant vs No sealant (control/no treatment)

Mean caries increment (mean number of new cavitated occlusal lesions) · Children with caries-free or non-cavitated carious lesion primary molars, aged 3-7 years (paediatric department, dental hospital, France)
1 finding from 1 review
  • Sealants for preventing dental caries in primary teeth 2022 · Cochrane All outcomes
    24 months
    Mean number of new cavitated occlusal lesions 0.23 (SD 0.06) in sealed molars vs 0.29 (SD 0.06) in control molars (Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test P = 0.42)
    1 study · 85 participants
    GRADE not reported

Fluoride-releasing resin-based sealant vs Resin-based sealant

Development of >=1 new carious lesion (caries incidence) · Children with caries-free second primary molars, aged 4-8 years (dental clinic, Turkey and Spain)
1 finding from 1 review
  • Sealants for preventing dental caries in primary teeth 2022 · Cochrane All outcomes
    6-24 months
    N/A - insufficient quantitative information available; 69 (2 studies). Comments: Due to the different sealant materials, data reporting (split-mouth studies reported as parallel-group) and the very low number of tooth…
    2 studies · 69 participants
    Low

Glass ionomer-based sealant vs No sealant (control/no treatment)

Dental caries increment, DMFT/dmft (whole-tooth level) · Children with caries-free primary first molars (with or without caries on other teeth), aged 1-5 years (paediatric clinic/dental school,…
1 finding from 1 review
  • Sealants for preventing dental caries in primary teeth 2022 · Cochrane All outcomes
    12 months
    Joshi 2019: dmft 8.43 (SD 5.84) with sealant vs 10.05 (SD 6.16) with no sealant at 12 months (caries threshold uncertain); Chadwick 2005: no significant difference in caries increment on occlusal surfaces, no summary…
    2 studies
    GRADE not reported

Laser fluorescence (DIAGNOdent 2190/pen) vs Reference standard (histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination)

Diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) for detection of early enamel caries (D1 threshold) · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
1 finding from 1 review
  • Fluorescence devices for the detection of dental caries 2020 · Cochrane All outcomes
    Up to 3 months between index test and reference standard (in vivo studies)
    Analysed as a separate index test (coupled forest plot and SROC plot, Figure 22 / Figure 23; Appendix 5); no summary DOR or sensitivity/specificity point reported numerically in the text. 34 datasets, 6842 tooth sites.
    32 studies
    GRADE not reported

Laser fluorescence (LF; DIAGNOdent) vs Reference standard (histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination)

Diagnostic accuracy (sensitivity and specificity) for detection of early enamel caries (D1 threshold) · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
1 finding from 1 review
  • Fluorescence devices for the detection of dental caries 2020 · Cochrane All outcomes
    Up to 3 months between index test and reference standard (in vivo studies)
    Analysed as a separate index test (coupled forest plot and SROC plot, Figure 22 / Figure 23; Appendix 5); no summary DOR or sensitivity/specificity point reported numerically in the text. 46 datasets, 7316 tooth sites.
    45 studies
    GRADE not reported

Red fluorescence devices (DIAGNOdent, DIAGNOdent pen, MidWest; excitation wavelength >655 nm) vs Reference standard (histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination)

Diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) for detection of early enamel caries (D1 threshold) · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
1 finding from 1 review

All fluorescence-based devices (red, blue, and green fluorescence combined) vs Reference standard (histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination)

Diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) by subgroup: Medium dentine-caries prevalence (15% to 34%) (detection of early enamel caries, D1 threshold) · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
1 finding from 1 review

All fluorescence-based devices (red, blue, and green fluorescence combined) vs Reference standard (histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination)

Diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) by subgroup: Histology or excavation reference standard (detection of early enamel caries, D1 threshold) · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
1 finding from 1 review

All fluorescence-based devices (red, blue, and green fluorescence combined) vs Reference standard (histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination)

Diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) by subgroup: Permanent/mixed dentition (detection of early enamel caries, D1 threshold) · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
1 finding from 1 review

All fluorescence-based devices (red, blue, and green fluorescence combined) vs Reference standard (histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination)

Diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) by subgroup: Low dentine-caries prevalence (<=14%) (detection of early enamel caries, D1 threshold) · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
1 finding from 1 review

All fluorescence-based devices (red, blue, and green fluorescence combined) vs Reference standard (histology, excavation, or enhanced visual examination)

Sensitivity at fixed upper-quartile specificity 0.90 (detection of early enamel caries, D1 threshold) · Asymptomatic children, adolescents, or adults presenting for clinical examination (in vivo studies), or extracted teeth of children or…
1 finding from 1 review