Research - A new mobile cross-platform application for caries risk assessment

Caries Risk Assessment (CRA) supports clinical decision making by assigning risk scores to patients based on weighted patient- and tooth-level factors. For on such CRA, a mobile application MyCAMBRA (Caries management by Risk Assessment, UCSF and Firsthand Technology), was previously constructed on iOS. We here aim to describe the development and implementation of a new CRA mobile application tailored for use by general practitioners (GPs).

Factors were established based on the systematically compiled evidence (MI Handbook) and two consensus meetings. Risk scores were assigned to specific groups (age 0-6, 6-14 and 14-adults, specific needs e.g. pregnant, or special needs patients) using 28 factors. The first version of the application was carried out using Ionic (v3), an open-source framework for building cross-platform applications for iOS and Android based on Apache Cordova. CRA factors knowledge was stored in a SQLite relational database.

Despite this new CRA application has not been validated yet, it was found useful for risk communication, behavior guidance and individualizing preventive care. Further studies in different populations, are required to validate the dispatch factors in the proposed specific age groups, optimize the algorithm and confirm the GPs acceptance.

The ConsEuro 2019 was the occasion to publicly present the first public beta of this new CRA application for smartphone.