Latin-American Dentists’ Decision-Making for Proximal Carious Lesions

Objectives: Proximal carious lesion management requires careful decision-making. The aim of the present survey was to evaluate the decision-making patterns of Latin-American dentists regarding proximal carious lesions on simulated bitewing radiographs.
Methods: One hundred and fifty-six dentists (n=156) from 10 countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru) were included in a convenience sampled survey, prior to a webinar about micro-invasive caries approaches. The participants were asked ‘Where would you intervene the carious process with a restorative approach based on the following bite-wing radiographic scenarios?’ and given one minute to answer.
Results: Four dentists (2.6%) claim that they would intervene restoratively on an E1-lesion (outer half of enamel), twelve(7.7%) on an E2-lesion (inner half of enamel), forty-eight (30.7%) on a D1-lesion (outer third of dentin), fifty-six (35.9%) on a D2-lesion (middle third of dentin) and thirty-six (23.1%) on a D3-lesion (inner third of dentin)
Conclusions: Forty one percent of dentists in this survey would intervene through operative approaches earlier than what the most recent caries consensus recommends. There is a need to spread the guidelines on non- and micro-invasive approaches to reduce the risk of overtreatment.