Sir, as dentists with extensive experience of primary dental care, we have enjoyed the series on research in dental practice. However, we were somewhat perturbed, in paper 4 on Measures (BDJ 2004, 197: 739–746), that Clinical Outcome measures included the likes of DMFT/dmft, CPITN, IOTN, TSIF and a number of patient based outcome measures, but did not include the Oral Health Index (OHX)1 or its variant, the Denplan Oral Health Score (OHS).

These indices are now used on a daily basis in UK dental practices, and, with over well over 1,000,000 OHS scores having been recorded in Denplan Excel practices, this represents, by far, the most widespread acceptance of a 'composite' index of oral health. The OHX and/or OHS have been found to be well accepted by general dental practitioners2, have found favour with patients as a means of communicating oral health3 and have demonstrated good inter- and intra-examiner reliability4,5. These indices fulfil all the properties of an ideal outcome measure quoted by the authors of the paper, hence our mystification at their omission.

One of the authors of the paper T Newton responds: Our list of measures was not intended as a comprehensive list of measures. We are grateful to Professor Burke and Dr Busby for drawing the attention of readers of the BDJ to these scales.