Background: Molars and premolars are considered as the most vulnerable teeth of caries attack, which is related to the morphology of their occlusal surfaces along with the difficulty of plaque removal. different methods were used for early caries detection that provide sensitive, accurate preoperative diagnosis of caries depths to establish adequate preventive measures and avoid premature tooth treatment by restoration. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical sensitivity and specificity rates of DIAGNOdent and visual inspection as opposed to the ICDAS for the detection of initial occlusal caries in noncavitated first permanent molars. Materials and Methods: This study examined 139 occlusal surface of the first permanent molar pooled from fifty patients aged 8-9 years by three methods. The selected criteria include one occlusal site per tooth (first permanent molars) with carious lesions range from 0 to 3 according to ICDASII (gold standard) visual criteria then the clinical sensitivity and specificity of visual inspection according to Ekstrand et al.in 1997 and DIAGNOdent were performed. . Results: the highest correlation was found between the ICDASII and DIAGNOdent. The sensitivity of the DIAGNOdent for the enamel caries detection (D1) was better than that of visual inspection. The sensitivity and the specificity for the DIAGNOdent at D3 threshold were better than the D1 threshold and the visual inspection method. Conclusion: DIAGNOden pen can be used as a tool for early caries detection in cases of difficult diagnosis that provide good additional sensitivity to the visual inspection.
