International Journal of Dentistry

Research Article

Approximal Caries Detection by DIFOTI: In Vitro Comparison of Diagnostic Accuracy/Efficacy with Film and Digital Radiography

Table 2

Examiner performance in detecting approximal caries lesions at two different diagnostic thresholds, expressed as sensitivity, specificity and AUC: area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Confidence interval of 95% is presented in brackets (CI 95%).


Method of examination	Sensitivity		Specificity		AUC (CI 95%)
Method of examination	Cut off 1	Cut off 2	Cut off 1	Cut off 2	Cut off 1	Cut off 2

Examiner 1
DIFOTI	0.65	0.33	0.91	0.95	0.79* (0.72–0.86)	0.80* (0.68–0.92)
Film	0.30	0.48	0.97	1.0	0.64* (0.58–0.70)	0.92* (0.82–1.00)
Digital	0.30	0.40	0.94	0.95	0.62* (0.54–0.69)	0.82* (0.69–0.94)
Examiner 2
DIFOTI	0.83	0.73	0.85	0.90	0.87* (0.81–0.94)	0.90* (0.83–0.98)
Film	0.33	0.53	0.82	0.91	0.57 (0.48–0.66)	0.87* (0.77–0.97)
Digital	0.22	0.53	0.82	0.92	0.52 (0.44–0.61)	0.79* (0.65–0.92)
Examiner 3
DIFOTI	0.62	0.60	0.94	0.94	0.79* (0.73–0.86)	0.86* (0.74–0.98)
Film	0.29	0.47	0.88	0.98	0.59* (0.51–0.66)	0.79* (0.65–0.93)
Digital	0.35	0.47	0.97	0.99	0.66* (0.60–0.73)	0.80* (0.66–0.94)
Examiner 4
DIFOTI	0.46	0.33	1.0	1.0	0.73* (0.67–0.79)	0.89* (0.79–1.00)
Film	0.13	0.27	1.0	0.99	0.56* (0.52–0.60)	0.65* (0.52–0.78)
Digital	0.24	0.40	0.97	0.99	0.60* (0.54–0.66)	0.78* (0.64–0.92)
Examiner 5
DIFOTI	0.89	0.40	0.68	0.95	0.83* (0.75–0.91)	0.89* (0.83–0.96)
Film	0.27	0.40	0.85	0.99	0.56 (0.48–0.64)	0.79* (0.66–0.93)
Digital	0.43	0.60	1.0	1.0	0.71* (0.65–0.78)	0.98* (0.95–1.00)
Examiner 6
DIFOTI	0.89	0.93	0.65	0.87	0.88* (0.82–0.94)	0.95* (0.91–0.99)
Film	0.60	0.47	0.56	1.0	0.63* (0.53–0.73)	0.88* (0.77–0.98)
Digital	0.64	0.47	0.74	0.96	0.71* (0.61–0.80)	0.88* (0.77–0.98)
Examiner 7
DIFOTI	0.71	0.60	0.91	0.82	0.82* (0.74–0.89)	0.83* (0.72–0.93)
Film	0.38	0.47	0.94	0.96	0.65* (0.58–0.73)	0.88* (0.78–0.99)
Digital	0.40	0.47	0.91	0.95	0.65* (0.57–0.73)	0.90* (0.82–0.99)
Examiner 8
DIFOTI	0.62	0.67	1.0	0.99	0.81* (0.75–0.87)	0.91* (0.82–1.00)
Film	0.33	0.53	0.91	0.99	0.62* (0.55–0.70)	0.87* (0.75–0.99)
Digital	0.35	0.47	0.94	0.99	0.64* (0.57–0.72)	0.79* (0.65–0.94)

Cut-off 1: Diagnostic threshold D1; enamel and dentin caries lesions.
Cut-off 2: Diagnostic threshold D3; dentin caries lesions.
*Statistically significant .