Yes it can. It may not penetrate as deeply in a non dried lesion.  Many times it may require a secondary treatment in 1-2 week.Yes, I would be lost without my Diagnodent, especially since we started our extensive Advantage Arrest program.  I feel it gives us a very good depiction of the relative The actual effect on reducing the bacteria in a lesion with resulting much lower readings from our Diagnodent gives me, the clinician, a reference point on what is happening in the lesion. ...2. if we find a tooth or area of teeth that is NOT getting decreased numbers on follow-up evaluations, it leads us to raising our level of Oral Health Education (OHE) with that particular patient and possibly shortening the interval between applications to 3 or 4 months instead of 6. I have attached an info sheet we give to many of our patients to help with the OHE, it really seems to have a profound effect on how they perceive their problem with chronic tooth decay and better helps them understand what they need to do to help solve the problem. Jo Frencken new book on Minimal intervention dentistry feels the D2 is better than other forms of electrical evaluation devices, but did not give it a high rating.  I, on the other hand, would not practice with our mine, we have 2 in our office.Advantage Arrest does affect Diagnodent readings.  It will lower them but I’m not sure how long it takes for that reading to change.  Diagnodent doesn’t actually look at the tooth.  It looks for porphyrins produced by bacteria during their metabolic process.  Since Advantage Arrest kills the bugs, the porphyrins get reduced