Comparative Evaluation of Dental Caries Score Between Teledentistry Examination and Clinical Examination: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Dental caries is a common dental health problem affecting all age groups across the globe. Accurate detection and assessment of dental caries are crucial for effective treatment and preventive measures. Teledentistry, which involves remote dental assessment using digital technologies, has shown promise as a potential tool for caries screening. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to compare the dental caries scores obtained from clinical examinations and teledentistry assessments. Literature searches were conducted across databases such as PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, Scopus, the Web of Science, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and PsycINFO by using predefined search terms and inclusion criteria. Two reviewers separately extracted the data. The study designs, evaluation techniques, dentition types, mean scores, and follow-up times of the included studies were examined. The New Castle-Ottawa Scale was used to assess the risk of bias. Review Manager (RevMan) (computer program) Version 5.4, The Cochrane Collaboration 2020, was used for the quantitative assessment of the data. Eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. The findings revealed that teledentistry assessments (based on intraoral photographs captured using smartphones or intraoral cameras) demonstrated comparable accuracy to traditional clinical examinations in detecting and assessing dental caries. Among the four studies that were quantitatively analysed, no significant difference was noted at p = 0.09. A mean difference of 0.64 (95% confidence interval (CI): -0.10; 1.38) suggested that clinical examination and teledentistry-based checkup were on par with each other for the detection of dental caries. The New Castle-Ottawa scale (NOS) grading indicated that the studies were of good quality. Teledentistry may be an effective approach for identifying and evaluating dental caries. However, further research is required to substantiate the findings observed in the present review.