Non-destructive clinical assessment of occlusal caries lesions using near-IR imaging methods
✍ Scribed by Michal Staninec; Shane M. Douglas; Cynthia L. Darling; Kenneth Chan; Hobin Kang; Robert C. Lee; Prof. Daniel Fried
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2011
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 416 KB
- Volume
- 43
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0196-8092
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Objective
Enamel is highly transparent in the near‐IR (NIR) at wavelengths near 1,300 nm, and stains are not visible. The purpose of this study was to use NIR transillumination and optical coherence tomography (OCT) to estimate the severity of caries lesions on occlusal surfaces both in vivo and on extracted teeth.
Methods
Extracted molars with suspected occlusal lesions were examined with OCT and polarization sensitive OCT (PS‐OCT), and subsequently sectioned and examined with polarized light microscopy (PLM) and transverse microradiography (TMR). Teeth in test subjects with occlusal caries lesions that were not cavitated or visible on radiographs were examined using NIR transillumination at 1,310 nm using a custom built probe attached to an indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) camera and a linear OCT scanner. After imaging, cavities were prepared using dye staining to guide caries removal and physical impressions of the cavities were taken.
Results
The lesion severity determined from OCT and PS‐OCT scans in vitro correlated with the depth determined using PLM and TMR. Occlusal caries lesions appeared in NIR images with high contrast in vivo. OCT scans showed that most of the lesions penetrated to dentin and spread laterally below the sound enamel.
Conclusion
This study demonstrates that both NIR transillumination and OCT are promising new methods for the clinical diagnosis of occlusal caries. Lasers Surg. Med. 43:951–959, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.