USING COMPUTERS TO DIAGNOSE AND PLAN TREATMENT OF APPROXIMAL CARIES DETECTED IN RADIOGRAPHS

Two of the authors developed a computer-based software system that is capable of diagnosing approximal caries and making decisions about restorative care. The system was compared with decisions made by a group of experienced clinicians. The results indicate that the clinician viewers overall correctly identified a similar number of surfaces as the software, but from viewer to viewer, there was more variability in the number of surfaces identified correctly than in those identified correctly by the software users. Software packages such as this have the potential to raise overall accuracy by increasing the consistency of treatment decisions over time.