Resumen:
The objective of the study was to evaluate the in vivo effectiveness of two fluorescence techniques (DIAGNOdent and VistaProof) and of visual and tactile evaluation in the diagnosis of occlusal caries in permanent teeth. A total of 302 teeth (molars and premolars) from 152 patients were studied. The occlusal surfaces were cleaned using pumice mixed with water, followed by application of the diagnostic methods according to the instructions of the manufacturer, and of the visual and tactile methods according to the recommendations. The true extent of the lesions was determined by fissurotomy. The sensitivity and specificity of visual diagnosis were 79 and 72 %, respectively, versus 53 and 98 % in the case of tactile diagnosis. Teeth with caries lesions exhibited significantly higher DIAGNOdent and VistaProof scores than those without caries. Using the optimum cutoff point of 23.5 obtained in our study for DIAGNOdent, sensitivity and specificity were found to be 92.4 and 92.7 %, respectively, while values of 88.1 and 95.1 % were obtained with a cutoff point of 28.5. Sensitivity in the case of the VistaProof system varied between 92.9 % (cutoff point 1.05) and 85.3 % (cutoff point 1.3), with respecti...