RESUMO
Aim: To evaluate reproducibility of visual exam under artificial lighting (VI) and DIAGNOdent(DD) exams, their validity and their association (VI+DD) in examining occlusal dental surfacesunder epidemiological setting. Methods: One hundred and sixty five 12-year-old schoolchildrenfrom public schools from Piracicaba, SP, Brazil, were examined under epidemiological settingusing different diagnostic criteria (D1, D1+D3 and D3). Kappa statistics was adopted forreproducibility study, while sensibility, specificity and accuracy were adopted for validity study.Results: The intra/interexaminer Kappa for VI and DD exams at D1, D3 and D1+D3 criteriawere 0.88/0.82 and 0.04/0.18, 0.91/0.85 and 0.36/0.35, 0.88/0.83 and 0.30/0.32, respectively.The VI was the most accurate exam at D1 (A=87.38%) and D1+D3 (A=82.45%) criteria, whileVI+DD was the most accurate exam at D3 criterion (A=75.29%). Conclusions: Initial carieslesions can be satisfactorily detected by VI exam, while DD exam improved the VI exam sensitivityat D1 and D3 diagnostic criteria under epidemiological setting.