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The manner in which results are reported is important. Documents that describe epidemiological surveys are not restricted to dental professionals. Policy makers, medical practitioners, politicians, and the public have access to such documents, which requires clear reporting and should be straightforward and supported with easily understandable tables and figures. To make caries epidemiological reports easy to read a few typical dental inherited approaches from the past need to be changed, such as the use of the dmf/DMF index, which dates back to 1938 and contains a number of deficiencies.

Table 1. The validated CAST characteristics, codes and descriptions

An inherent deficiency is its use in calculating the prevalence of dental caries. By definition, the presence of carious lesions into dentine, restored dentine lesions, and missing teeth due to dental caries (D₃MFT) make up the prevalence of dental caries. If required, the code for enamel carious lesion(s) can be included in the prevalence calculation, but this has to be clearly stated (D₁MFT or D₂MFT). The present definition covers not only actual disease but also past disease (restored and missing teeth). The advantage of considering teeth restored and teeth lost due to dental caries not diseased anymore is that dental caries prevalence is calculated on the bases of the actual presence of the disease in the individual. This reasoning was one of the cornerstones of the development of CAST. It holds the advantage of depicting the state of the disease and monitoring its changes over time in society more reliably. For example, successful interventions cannot be evidenced by a lower prevalence score [27].

In principle, studies that use CAST do not report the results in dmf/DMF counts but a dmf/DMF count can be calculated using CAST codes [23]. CAST uses frequency distributions per caries code or for maximum CAST code, depending on the aim of the survey (Fig. 1, 2). The severity of caries-related conditions within an individual or group after using CAST is calculated according to a mathematical formula in which the CAST codes have been assigned a weighted coefficient of severity [28]. Those wishing to know more about how to apply CAST and how to report data are referred to the CAST manual [29].