In vitro validity of the Dundee Selectable Threshold Method for caries diagnosis (DSTM)

It is not generally possible to assess diagnostic accuracy in dental surveys as no histological 'gold standards' are available, therefore examiner agreement tends to be used as a proxy for accuracy. The aim of this study was to investigate, using extracted teeth in arch models, the in vitro validity of a diagnostic system to assess caries at the D1 (enamel and dentine) and D3 (dentine) diagnostic thresholds, for epidemiological purposes.