Near-infrared transillumination at 1310-nm for the imaging of early dental decay

Abstract

New imaging technologies are needed for the early detection of dental caries (decay) in the interproximal contact sites between teeth. Previous measurements have demonstrated that dental enamel is highly transparent in the near-IR at 1300-nm. In this study, a near-IR imaging system operating at 1300-nm was used to acquire images through tooth sections of varying thickness and whole teeth in order to demonstrate the utility of a near-IR dental transillumination system for the imaging of early dental caries (decay). Simulated lesions, which model the optical scattering of natural dental caries, were placed in plano-parallel dental enamel sections. The contrast ratio between the simulated lesions and surrounding sound enamel was calculated from analysis of acquired projection images. The results show significant contrast between the lesion and the enamel (>0.35) and a spatial line profile that clearly resolves the lesion in samples as thick as 6.75-mm. This study clearly demonstrates that a near-IR transillumination system has considerable potential for the imaging of early dental decay.

Spectroscopic Study of Human Teeth and Blood from Visible to Terahertz Frequencies for Clinical Diagnosis of Dental Pulp Vitality

“…The rather high transparency of human teeth at λ = 1.3 μm has been reported previously and this wavelength has been suggested for teeth imaging [8]. The inset in Fig.…”

“…Optical methods appear to offer a reliable assessment of pulp vitality. Much work has already been carried out in the field of imaging and caries localization by throughput of light with an emphasis on the determination of suitable transmission windows in the IR and THz spectral ranges [7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

Tissue characterization with ballistic photons: counting scattering and/or absorption centres

“…This is in contrast with the highly acclaimed optical tomography that uses Michelson inter− ferometric setup to evaluate the material in depth, in reflec− tion, and upon a double−pass under optimal conditions of perfect alignment [19]. Furthermore, scanning imaging schemes have also been investigated to sample the tissue across transverse plane [20][21][22][23].…”

Diagnosis of Dentin Caries – Ultraviolet Fluorescence

“…[6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. One of the most modern methods is fl uorescence method using ultraviolet caries detector.…”