Facilitating dental disease screening program in prisoners using an intraoral camera in teledentistry

OBJECTIVES: To facilitate dental disease screening program in prisoners by testing the diagnostic accuracy of teledentistry examination in comparison to direct oral examination by a dentist. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This crossover study comprised three phases. Phase I, prisoner health volunteers (PHVs) enrolled teledentistry training for an intraoral camera (IOC) use. Phase II, the PHV used IOC for examining dental diseases of prisoners who reported dental-related problems, and captured symptomatic areas. The PHV and dentist independently determined tentative dental treatment need, comprising dental fillings, scaling, extraction, and surgical removal of impacted tooth. Phase III, another dentist performed direct oral examination of the prisoners who reported problems in phase II and determined dental treatment needs. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) were calculated, using direct oral examination by dentist as a true positive. RESULTS: Diagnostic accuracy was determined in 152 prisoners with 215 teeth. Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of teledentistry and direct examination between two dentists were above 80%. The lowest sensitivity and specificity of teledentistry examination by the PHV were scaling and surgical removal. CONCLUSIONS: IOC use in teledentistry facilitates dentists in dental diseases screening for prisoners with acceptable diagnostic accuracy in identifying possible treatment needs. However, the imaging obtained from teledentistry is not adequate to accurately identify all dental treatment needs.