Reliability and Validation of a Newly Proposed Score-based Criterion for Minimal Invasive Pulpal Diagnosis and Treatment Planning

Abstract

Introduction: A thorough case history aids in proper diagnosis and treatment planning. Since many years various case history formats or questionnaires have been followed, which are too long as well as they lack any numerical support for the responses. Hence, it makes all of them less precise and less accurate. Aim: To develop and validate a newly proposed score-based criterion for minimal invasive pulpal diagnosis and treatment planning. Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, K.M. Shah Dental College, Vadodara, India, from December 2021 to April 2022. Study included 200 subjects with pain in maxillary or mandibular teeth due to primary carious lesion participated. This study included two groups of experts: group I had two experienced endodontists, who examined the patients based on their knowledge and experience using traditional diagnostic methods and a standard treatment plan was advised and group II had two calibrated experts endodontist (primary investigator) and a general dentist (co-investigator) using this newly proposed score-based evaluation criterion and a minimal invasive treatment plan was suggested. Each patient was examined by both the groups. The statistical analysis for the agreement between standard treatment plan (group I) and suggested treatment plan (group II) was done via Cohen Kappa test. Results: Of total participants, 108 (54%) were females and 92 (46%) were males and the mean age of participants was 36.26±12.72 years. The mean age of females and males was 34.26±12.17 years and 38.61±13.01 years, respectively. The result of the study showed almost perfect agreement (kappa=0.918, p-value <0.001) between both the groups indicating high accuracy of the newly proposed score-based criterion. Conclusion: This newly proposed score-based criterion offers a minimal invasive diagnosis and treatment planning with a strong numerical support that can be efficiently used by the general practitioners and the endodontists in their routine clinical practices as well as by the academicians/researchers for case selection for clinical trials/studies in field of endodontics.