A importância da calibragem para avaliação radiográfica de anomalias dentárias de pacientes com câncer

Abstract

Anomaly is a variation or deviation of an anatomic characteristic or structure from normality. Due to anti-cancer treatments, survival children with cancer are prone to have dental anomalies as a delayed effect revealed by full-mouth radiography. However, examiners should have previous training, assessed by concordance tests (Kappa test) for reliable and reproducible results. Calibration is important for examiners to evaluate dental anomalies in patients with cancer so that highly reliable data may be obtained. Forty full-mouth radiographies, twenty of control group and 20 of the experimental group, were randomly selected. Examiners proved to be calibrated when Kappa test rates were between 0.61and 1.0. Intra-examiner calibration featured between least (0.61-0.80) and maximum concordance (0.81 – 1.0) for the two examiners. In the case of inter-examiner calibration, minimum Kappa featured moderate concordance (0.41 – 0.60) during the first stage; whilst a substantial concordance was reached (0.61-0.80) in the second stage, proving standardization of examiners. A careful and detailed calibration is required to evaluate dental anomalies in full-mouth radiographies, enhancing reliable and reproducible information for scientific evidence.