Management of early caries lesions

Over the years, the field of conservative dentistry has undergone significant conceptual changes in the management of carious lesions.Thanks to a better understanding of the caries process, and taking advantage of technological advances, dentistry has gradually evolved from surgical and invasive dentistry to preventive and conservative dentistry, which strives to adopt a less mutilating approach: this is ＂minimally invasive dentistry＂.The aim of this new concept is to detect carious lesions at an early stage, using innovative transillumination or fluorescence devices, enabling the dentist to offer reversionary or minimally invasive treatments tailored to the degree of tissue damage.Nonetheless, these techniques are struggling to gain widespread acceptance among practitioners, due to their high cost and a certain lack of knowledge of the latest scientific data, which is not offered by initial training.