Clinical and radiographic correlation of carious lesion in posterior teeth of scholar children

Objectives: To establish the correlation between the clinical diagnosis of dental caries by ICDAS criteria and radiographic diagnosis of ICCMS, in deciduous and permanent molars of a school population.
Methods: Descriptive study that evaluated the correlation between the depth of the carious lesion diagnosed with ICDAS criteria with respect to the depth of the lesion diagnosed with bitewing radiographs. The sample consisted of 480 permanent and deciduous molars evaluated in a group of school children 6-8 years of an educational institution in Cali. The total number of surfaces tested was 1440, diagnosed by two standardized dentists. Spearman correlation coefficient was calculated and Chi² test or Fisher's exact test was performed if the expected values ​​were less than five, with an alpha of 0.05.

Results: Clinical and radiographic diagnosis in 1384 surfaces with both values was evaluated, with a Spearman correlation coefficient of 0.68 (p <0.05). The diagnosis of clinically and radiographically healthy agreed in 94.43% of cases. When caries in enamel was clinically diagnosed, it was found radiographically as initial (22.22%) or moderate (9.52%), while the 12.04% were not detected radiographically. When there was loss of integrity underlying dentin surface-shaded clinically in 59.38% of radiographs was determined as healthy, coinciding early stage diagnosis in 31.25% of radiographic diagnostic and moderate stages only in 6.25% of cases. The clinical diagnosis of dentinal caries was determined as sound in 29.33% of evaluated surfaces.


Conclusions: There is a low correlation between clinical and radiographic diagnosis considering all caries diagnosis. The biggest discrepancy is in the moderate stages of decay. When the lesion is located in dentin is detected clinically and radiographically, whereas when it is confined to the enamel radiographic diagnosis is less sensitive.