About 40% of dentists in the U.S. reported seeing a colleague making a diagnostic error daily or weekly, and approximately 12% admitted making mistakes themselves at the same frequency, according to a study published recently in BMC Oral Health.
Diseases of the pulp, periapical tissues, and other disorders of the teeth and supporting structures, as well as head and neck cancers, were some of the most common conditions associated with diagnostic errors, the authors wrote.
“(This research) offers a foundational roadmap for future efforts to mitigate DEs (diagnostic errors) in dentistry,” wrote co-author Dr. Enihomo Obadan-Udoh of the University of Utah School of Dentistry in Salt Lake City (BMC Oral Health, December 23, 2025).
For this cross-sectional study of U.S. dentists, 334 self-reported their personal experiences of their diagnostic errors and those they observed. Of the respondents, about 25% were from California and New York. Dentists from Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi, Montana, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Wyoming did not submit responses. Secondary outcomes reported were dental conditions most often associated with errors.
Of the 334 dentists who participated, nearly 8% observed other dentists making incorrect diagnoses daily and 32% saw them weekly. Another 28% saw mistakes being made monthly, the authors wrote.
Approximately 2% of dentists admitted to making diagnostic errors weekly, while about 10% reported making them weekly. Nearly 26% of dentists reported making personal diagnostic errors monthly. About 6% of dentists reported never making diagnostic errors themselves, but only 0.6% of clinicians never saw another dentist making an incorrect diagnosis, they wrote.
The dental conditions most frequently associated with errors included:
- Diseases of pulp, periapical tissues, and other disorders of the teeth and supporting structures (45%)
- Acute and chronic sinusitis (44.6%)
- Head and neck cancers/neoplasms (43.9%)
However, the study had multiple limitations, including that data collection depended on the integrity and transparency of clinicians without verifying the information via electronic medical records or patient corroboration. But electronic record review may be impractical, since dentists are well known for disparate use of diagnostic codes, the authors wrote.
In the future, more research should be conducted to better understand the occurrence of diagnostic errors from dentists by stratifying each specialty and using AI of electronic dental records, Obadan-Udoh and co-author Rachel Howard of the University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry wrote.
“As the field of dentistry endeavors to reduce DEs, dentists need to embrace the development and implementation of preventive strategies that can improve diagnostic performance,” they wrote.
This story is based on an unedited version of the study to grant early access to its findings. The study will undergo further editing before its final publication in BMC Oral Health.
