Overcoming Avoidable Research Waste in Carious Lesion Management Research
type: CreativeWork
description: Dental caries is a preventable, yet extremely prevalent, non-communicable oral disease. The clinical manifestations (i.e. carious lesions) and their sequelae bring a significant health burden including loss of function, pain, discomfort, reduced quality of life and tooth loss. This health burden also has a negative social and economic impact on individuals and societies. Although the aetiopathogenesis of the disease is now better understood, with effective preventive strategies identified and developed, uncertainty surrounds how best to manage the lesions when they arise for both short-term and long-term health and wellbeing. Relevant research has not always resulted in widespread adoption of novel techniques and approaches. This is, in part, due to limitations arising from the avoidable waste resulting from issues with the conduct of the research. This thesis explores the problem of research waste in carious lesion management research and identifies ways in which this can be mitigated to increase the value of clinical research and, ultimately, improve clinical care for patients. The thesis begins with a narrative review of dental caries including the aetiopathogenesis and prevention of the disease. The changing epidemiology and current treatment philosophies are also presented. Thereafter, the problem of avoidable waste in healthcare research is explored, within the context of the proposed Global Evidence Ecosystem for Oral Health (GEEOH). Specifically, how the problem of inconsistent outcome selection and reporting in both primary (e.g. Randomised Controlled Trials) and secondary research (Systematic reviews) can be addressed to contribute to the building of an effective and efficient evidence ecosystem. A systematic assessment of relevant systematic reviews (SRs) is presented in chapter 3. This chapter highlights the growing problem of overproduction of systematic reviews and the failure to appropriately update these reviews. An analysis of updated systematic rev…
abstract: Dental caries is a preventable, yet extremely prevalent, non-communicable oral disease. The clinical manifestations (i.e. carious lesions) and their sequelae bring a significant health burden including loss of function, pain, discomfort, reduced quality of life and tooth loss. This health burden also has a negative social and economic impact on individuals and societies. Although the aetiopathogenesis of the disease is now better understood, with effective preventive strategies identified and developed, uncertainty surrounds how best to manage the lesions when they arise for both short-term and long-term health and wellbeing. Relevant research has not always resulted in widespread adoption of novel techniques and approaches. This is, in part, due to limitations arising from the avoidable waste resulting from issues with the conduct of the research. This thesis explores the problem of research waste in carious lesion management research and identifies ways in which this can be mitigated to increase the value of clinical research and, ultimately, improve clinical care for patients. The thesis begins with a narrative review of dental caries including the aetiopathogenesis and prevention of the disease. The changing epidemiology and current treatment philosophies are also presented. Thereafter, the problem of avoidable waste in healthcare research is explored, within the context of the proposed Global Evidence Ecosystem for Oral Health (GEEOH). Specifically, how the problem of inconsistent outcome selection and reporting in both primary (e.g. Randomised Controlled Trials) and secondary research (Systematic reviews) can be addressed to contribute to the building of an effective and efficient evidence ecosystem. A systematic assessment of relevant systematic reviews (SRs) is presented in chapter 3. This chapter highlights the growing problem of overproduction of systematic reviews and the failure to appropriately update these reviews. An analysis of updated systematic rev…
author: Levey, Colin
language: eng
keywords: Sysematic Review, Caries, Randomised Controlled Trial, Research waste, Core Outcome Set
date published: 2020
date modified: 2026-07-24T02:08:59Z
provider: University of Dundee
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Dundee