Performance of a recent light fluorescence device for detection of occlusal carious lesions in children and adolescents.

AIM

To assess the validity and reliability of a recent light fluorescence device, Soprolife (Sopro-Acteon group) in detecting occlusal caries in children and adolescents and to compare its diagnostic performance with DIAGNOPen (Kavo).

METHODS

A multi-centre study was carried out to validate Soprolife in 103 children, aged from 5-15 years, on 310 primary and 433 permanent posterior teeth. The sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP) and the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) were evaluated using visual International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) and radiographic examinations as the gold standards. The performance of the Soprolife was compared with that of the DIAGNOPen on the same teeth. The reproducibility was assessed using weighted Kappa coefficient.

RESULTS

When all carious lesions using ICDAS 1-6 were considered, SE, SP and AUC for the Soprolife were 88.50, 70.73 and 0.84 respectively. The validity was significantly higher for primary teeth (AUC = 0.90) than for permanent teeth (0.80); the validity of the Soprolife (0.84) was significantly higher than that of DIAGNOPen (0.80). The inter- and intra-examiner kappa coefficients were 0.87 and 0.85 respectively.

CONCLUSION

The Soprolife was a valid instrument providing reproducible results, particularly for primary teeth.