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Affecting 60–90 percent of schoolchildren and nearly all adults, dental caries is the most prevalent oral disease around the globe. As current detection methods, such as visual inspection and radiographs, lack sufficient specificity and sensitivity to detect caries at an early stage, researchers seeking an improved means of detection have now described a new method enabling much earlier detection using inexpensive long-wavelength infrared imaging.
The low-cost thermophotonic lock-in imaging (TPLI) tool incorporates intensity-modulated laser light along with a low-cost long-wavelength infrared camera to allow detection of incipient caries much earlier than radiographs or visual analysis of the tooth surfaces can achieve.
The camera is highly suitable for integration into clinical platforms being noninvasive and of low weight and cost.
To test the effectiveness of this new imaging tool, researchers at York University in Toronto artificially induced early demineralization on an extracted human molar by submerging it in an acid solution for two, four, six, eight and ten days. The TPLI image taken after just two days clearly showed the presence of a lesion, whereas a trained dental practitioner could not visually detect the same lesion even after ten days of demineralization.
Commenting on the results of the study, Prof. Andreas Mandelis from the University of Toronto’s Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering stated: “This paper will have a high impact on the way dentists diagnose incipient caries. The longwave IR thermophotonic imaging technology is at its nascent steps, but this paper brings it closer to actual clinical practice.”
The study, titled “First step toward translation of thermophotonic lock-in imaging to dentistry as an early caries detection technology,” was published in the September issue of the Journal of Biomedical Optics.