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Background/objectives The detection of dental caries in the early stages, particularly on the occlusal surfaces, has become a mainstay of contemporary clinical practice. The objective of the study was to verify the accuracy of laser fluorescence (LF) for caries detection. Methods A comprehensive search of the MEDLINE (PubMed), EMBase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, IBECS, BIOSIS, Web of Science, SCOPUS, Congress Abstracts and Grey literature databases was undertaken from 1980 through January 2016. We included cross-sectional studies that evaluated laser fluorescence in caries diagnoses in vitro and compared them with histological analyses. Results A total of 39 articles were included in the meta-analysis, which included 2082 caries sites. The pooled sensitivity was 0.71 (0.69, 0.73), and the specificity was 0.81 (0.73, 0.82). The DOR was 14.93 (11.2, 19.9). A summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC) was constructed. The area under the curve was 0.865. Conclusion This meta-analysis showed that LF in vitro had the ability to diagnose occlusal caries lesions in permanent teeth and enamel and dentin caries. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Testing Treatments is a book written to help everyone understand why testing treatments is so important, why treatment tests have to be fair, and how everyone can help to promote better research for better health care. The book proved to be very popular and its second edition has already been translated into a dozen languages, with more translations in the pipeline. The texts of the original English and all the translations are feely downloadable from Testing Treatments interactive at www.testingtreatments.org. The editors of all the different language websites have established an TTi Editorial Alliance, to share experiences and provide each other with mutual support. The TTi Editorial Alliance seeks to promote a world in which health professionals, patients and the public use reliable research to inform their health decisions. Its missions are (i) To promote a global network, involving members of the public in partnership with professionals, to communicate and discuss basic principles and general knowledge about testing treatments; (ii) to help the public increase critical thinking and skills in accessing, apprehending, appraising and using research evidence; and (iii) to help patients and the public to participate more actively in health research.