| Introduction: The objective of this study was to clinically assess the reliability of PO as a method to determine pulp vitality and compare its accuracy to cold and electric pulp testing.;Methods: Seventy five patients undergoing endodontic therapy at the UTHSC at Houston, School of Dentistry participated. Before routine endodontic treatment, the pulpal status was determined as having either vital or necrotic pulps by using the EPT, Endo Ice (1, 1, 1, 2-tetrafluoroethane) and the PO. The contralateral tooth was used as the control. Students recorded true pulpal status (vital/necrotic) by observing blood within the pulp chamber after an access cavity was made which was considered to be the gold standard. Sensitivity, Specificity, negative predictive value and positive predictive value as well as Kappa agreement for each were calculated by comparing the results by observing blood within the pulp chamber after an access cavity was made which was considered to be the gold standard.;Results: sensitivity for the Endo-Ice Test, EPT and PO were 96.5 percent, 94.7 percent and 94.5 percent respectively. Specificity for the three tests was 73.7 percent, 52.6 and 10.5 percent, respectively. Positive predictive values for the three tests were 84.6 percent, 75.0 percent and 75.4 percent, respectively. Negative predictive values for the three tests, were 93.3 percent, 87.0 percent and 40.0 percent, respectively. Kappa agreement analysis for Endo-Ice Test, ETP and PO were .727, .507, and .067, respectively.;Conclusion: Pulse Oximeter showed to be a reliable diagnostic method in the presence of disease, however unreliable in the absence of disease. |
