Pearl Oral Health Index Finds Higher U.S. Decay Rates Than Federal Data

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Posted: June 29, 2026
Edited by Dentaltown staff

LOS ANGELES—Pearl has released the Pearl Oral Health Index, an analysis of dental x-rays that the company said is the largest radiographic review of American oral health to date. Using its FDA-cleared AI platform, Pearl analyzed more than 26 million dental x-rays across 15 million patients and 737 million teeth.

Pearl said the data shows untreated tooth decay is at least 4.5 times more common than federal estimates indicate. The company found an average of 6.07 decayed teeth per patient, compared with 0.7 in the CDC’s NHANES survey, and said x-rays can detect demineralization before decay is visible to the eye.

The Index also examined geography and access. Patients in zip codes with no dentists had a 40 percent higher rate of tooth loss than those in areas with many dentists, the company said. Women made up 56.2 percent of patients, and Pearl said American women are 28 percent more likely than men to visit a dentist.

“AI didn’t create this problem, but it finally let us measure it,” said Ophir Tanz, founder and CEO of Pearl.

The company said the Index draws on dental records from adults across all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.K., collected between April 2024 and March 2026.

For more information, visit hellopearl.com/oral-health-index.
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