Associate Professor Dr Chew Hooi Pin

BDS(Mal), FDSRCS (Eng), PhD (Manchester), Senior Lecturer, Department of Restorative Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya

Dr. Chew is an Associate Professor at the Department of Restorative Dentistry, Univeristy of Malaya. She is currently the Coordinator of the Operative Dentistry Program and also the Integrated Cariology Module of the Faculty. She graduated from the University of Malaya and upon graduation went on to serve the community in Borneo under the Malaysian Ministry of Health. She joined University of Malaya in 1996 and obtained her Fellowship in Dental Surgery, Royal College of Surgeon (FDSRCS) England in 1998 and PhD from Manchester, England in 2013. In 2014, she was appointed by the Malaysian Dental Dean Council to lead the Malaysian National ICDAS taskforce to oversee the national implementation of ICDAS in all the dental schools in Malaysia. Her main research interest is in the development and validation of in vivo diagnostic methodology for dental caries, early erosion and advanced erosive wear. In addition to that, she had also been involved in the assessment of the efficacy of various dental and biomaterials in the treatment of caries and erosion. Her other research interest is the evaluation of caries risk assessment models. She was the Principal Investigator of a High Impact Research Fund awarded by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education and leads a team of researchers on various research projects on the detection of dental caries and dental erosion. She had published articles in peer reviewed journals on the above research areas. She is also actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate clinical teaching and intramural practice in the Faculty. Dr. Chew had been invited to speak in national and international conferences mainly on caries management pathways, caries detection, erosive wear and posterior composites.

Caries Risk Assessment and Measuring Tools

The presentation seeks first to discuss issues regarding the definition of dental caries, as a tooth or surface-level condition versus a person-level disease. It also explores the plethora of proximal and distal factors that cause and influence its occurrence. It is then followed by discussion of the fundamental concepts of risk assessment and reviews of current caries risk assessment approaches and tools. Most risk assessment approaches attempt to collate the influences of these factors and assist in informed-clinical decision making for customized oral health care according to individuals’ specific oral health needs. Accurate caries risk assessment at both population- and individual-level are both desirable. Highlights will be made of recent work and advances in methods available to estimate caries risk at population-level, the fallacy of applying population-level parameters to individuals and the derivation of individual-level caries risk profile.