AlShaya Mohammad, Farsi Deema, Farsi Nada, Farsi Najat
Pediatric Dentistry Department, Faculty of Dentistry, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Ministry of Health, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Digit Health. 2022 Jun 22;8:20552076221109075. doi: 10.1177/20552076221109075. eCollection 2022 Jan-Dec.
The increasing burden of dental caries and the lack of effective dental caries screening protocols in non-dental settings, such as schools, demand an innovative and cost-effective approach. Teledentistry is the field of dentistry that combines telecommunication with health records and digital imaging to improve access to dental care and help in epidemiological surveys. This study aimed to assess the accuracy of non-dentist teledentistry in caries detection compared with the clinical dental examination of a sample of 5-10-year-old schoolchildren.
A calibrated dentist examined schoolchildren aged 5-10 years old. The dentist and two teachers took intraoral photographs for each child, using a smartphone. The photographs were concealed; therefore, the dentist assessed the three sets of photographs blindly two weeks after the clinical examination. Accuracy was measured to compare the teledentistry examination with the clinical dental examination.
The mean DMFT of primary teeth was 3.38, 3.42, and 3.17 upon clinical examination, dental-teledentistry examination (findings of photographs taken by a dentist), and non-dental teledentistry (findings of photographs taken by teachers), respectively. The mean DMFT of permanent teeth was 0.75, 0.69, and 0.65 upon clinical examination, dental-teledentistry examination, and non-dental teledentistry examination, respectively. In primary teeth, dental teledentistry and non-dental teledentistry examinations showed 95 and 98.3 sensitivity and 94.3 and 91.4 specificity, respectively. In permanent teeth, dental teledentistry and non-dental teledentistry examinations showed 80.8 and 88.5 sensitivity and 94.1 and 96.1 specificity, respectively.
Teledentistry has acceptable accuracy for caries detection in schoolchildren compared to a clinical dental examination.
龋齿负担日益加重，而在学校等非牙科环境中缺乏有效的龋齿筛查方案，这就需要一种创新且具有成本效益的方法。远程牙科是将电信与健康记录及数字成像相结合的牙科领域，旨在改善牙科护理的可及性并助力流行病学调查。本研究旨在评估非牙医远程牙科在龋齿检测方面的准确性，并与对5至10岁学童样本进行的临床牙科检查进行比较。
一名经过校准的牙医对5至10岁的学童进行检查。牙医和两名教师使用智能手机为每个孩子拍摄口腔内照片。照片进行了遮盖处理；因此，牙医在临床检查两周后对这三组照片进行了盲法评估。通过比较远程牙科检查与临床牙科检查来测量准确性。
乳牙的平均龋失补牙面数（DMFT）在临床检查、牙科远程牙科检查（牙医拍摄照片的结果）和非牙科远程牙科检查（教师拍摄照片的结果）中分别为3.38、3.42和3.17。恒牙的平均DMFT在临床检查、牙科远程牙科检查和非牙科远程牙科检查中分别为0.75、0.69和0.65。在乳牙方面，牙科远程牙科检查和非牙科远程牙科检查的敏感性分别为95%和98.3%，特异性分别为94.3%和91.4%。在恒牙方面，牙科远程牙科检查和非牙科远程牙科检查的敏感性分别为80.8%和88.5%，特异性分别为94.1%和96.1%。
与临床牙科检查相比，远程牙科在学童龋齿检测方面具有可接受的准确性。
