The shared vision for ICDAS is:  ¤ ICDAS is a clinical scoring system for use in dental education,  clinical practice, research, and epidemiology.  ¤ ICDAS is designed to: lead to better quality information to inform  decisions about appropriate diagnosis, prognosis, and clinical  management at both the indivdual and public health levels.  and  ¤ ICDAS provides a framework to support and enable personalised   total caries management for improved long term health outcomes.

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The caries diagnostic process.

Optimally the goal is to decide accurately and reliably whether the observed condition is indeed a caries lesion and not something else (e.g. dental fluorosis), then assess its severity (depth and lateral extent), and finally assess the activity status of the lesion. If the caries lesion is then judged to be in a state of progression (an active caries lesion), and the relevant disease-promoting factors are anticipated to stay the same, some form of non-operative or operative treatment is needed. If, on the other hand, the lesion is judged to be not progressing (an arrested lesion) and the relevant disease-promoting factors stay the same, no treatment is needed (Ekstrand et al., 2001; Nyvad 2004; Zandona and Zero, 2006).

 

The first part of this page shows a copy of the decision tree for primary caries as included in the e-learning program

The next part concerns the clinical parameters, which can be used to assess the activity of the lesions divided into different severity stages (score 0-6). Some further explanation is given to some of the parameters and the relative weight they should have based on the best evidence of to day (Pitts, 2009; Monographs in Oral Science)

 

This page finalizes with decision trees for primary caries on the root surfaces both for detection and activity assessment.

Clinical observations to be taken into consideration for assessing lesion activity.
(Ekstrand et al., 1998, 2005, 2007; Nyvad et al., 1999)



Further explanation





 

Caries adjacent to restorations (CAR)

Decision trees for detection and activity assessment of caries adjacent to restorations (CAR) is under development