Imaging carious human dental tissue with optical coherence tomography

Abstract

Optical coherence tomography is an imaging technology that produces high-resolution cross-sectional images of turbid media and internal microstructures including inside living tissue. In this work, three-dimensional images of a dental microstructure, that can be used to make both qualitative and quantitative assessments of oral tissue health, were obtained. It was possible to detect subclinical caries in third molar human teeth, showing that the lesion is located below the surface at 10 μm with a maximum depth lesion of 50 μm. A three-dimensional image was constructed confirming that it is possible to observe different planes inside the sample. It is important to notice that the optical changes induced by the carious disease in dental tissue can be readily detected by the optical coherence tomography method, before structural changes become apparent.