Abstract
Detect of initial caries is important to get the preventive or treatment planning. Dentists used to examine the teeth with their naked eyes and sometimes it causes to make the faults for preventive caries of sealants. Nowadays, DIAGNOdent(KaVo Co) was deviced to determine the early caries lesion by use of soft laser beam and it make easy to decide to care either sealing or filling. The study was devided two steps as laboratory experiment and clinical study. In laboratory initial caries lesion were selected and determined the caries levels as no caries, initial caries enamel or advanced caries for dentine, and preventive planning as no cares, sealing, sealing with filling or filling, by naked eyes, intra-oral X-ray taking, and by use of DIAGNOdent device. The results were compared with the results of examined samples of longitudinal section of the deepest pit each tooth. In addition, 50 posterior teeth with no caries or initial caries for 10 volunteers were examined by 10 dentists and determined by DIAGNOdent, in order to make caries decision and preventive plans for each teeth. The data were collected and compared each other, and fined considerable differances by each checking methods. DIAGNOdent offers the highest degree of sensitivity. From visual inspection carried out by a group of general practitioners, the correct diagnosis of fissure caries was achieved in only 68% of all caries, but over 70% when using the DIAGNOdent. In this study the DIAGNOdent numerical data indicates no caries lesions in the enamel show values of between 0 and 15, and initial lesion in the enamel show values of between 16 and 70, and that values of beyond that indicate dentine caries.