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

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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.

©2003 Optical Society of America

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Figures (6)

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. The attenuation coefficient of dental enamel (blue)[10, 11] and water (red) [12].
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Setup used for Near-Infrared Transillumination of whole teeth and tooth sections consists of a broadband light source, crossed linear polarizers, a bandpass filter and a NIR InGaAs focal plane array (FPA).
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. A) Side-view of a 3-mm thick tooth section with a simulated lesion. B) The lesion cannot be seen using transillumination with visible light and a CCD camera. C) The lesion is clearly visible under NIR transillumination D) An x-ray of the section using D-speed film indicates the small contrast difference between the simulated lesion and sound enamel. The sound enamel [e] and dentin [d] layers are distinguishable in all the projection images.
Fig 4.
Fig 4. NIR transillumination images of tooth sections with simulated lesions are shown for each representative sample thickness. The corresponding spatial line profiles demarcated in red are shown on the inset in the lower right of each image, and the measured lesion contrast is shown in the lower left. The left axis represents the pixel intensity ranging from 0 - 4096, and the bottom axis the pixel position through the lesion.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. The mean ±s.d lesion contrast plotted versus the thickness of the plano-parallel enamel samples, n=5.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 6. (2.5 MB) NIR image of a whole tooth sample. A natural carious lesion and a composite restoration are seen on the left and right, respectively. The tooth is slightly rotated to present different viewing angles. A crack is also visible in the center of the tooth.

Equations (1)

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Lesion contrast ( C ) = ( I E I L ) I E
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