Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 Mar 1:7549:75490K.
doi: 10.1117/12.849338.

In vitro near-infrared imaging of occlusal dental caries using germanium enhanced CMOS camera

Chulsung Lee  1 , Cynthia L Darling, Daniel Fried
Affiliations

In vitro near-infrared imaging of occlusal dental caries using germanium enhanced CMOS camera

Chulsung Lee et al. Proc SPIE Int Soc Opt Eng. .

Abstract

The high transparency of dental enamel in the near-infrared (NIR) at 1310-nm can be exploited for imaging dental caries without the use of ionizing radiation. The objective of this study was to determine whether the lesion contrast derived from NIR transillumination can be used to estimate lesion severity. Another aim was to compare the performance of a new Ge enhanced complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) based NIR imaging camera with the InGaAs focal plane array (FPA). Extracted human teeth (n=52) with natural occlusal caries were imaged with both cameras at 1310-nm and the image contrast between sound and carious regions was calculated. After NIR imaging, teeth were sectioned and examined using more established methods, namely polarized light microscopy (PLM) and transverse microradiography (TMR) to calculate lesion severity. Lesions were then classified into 4 categories according to the lesion severity. Lesion contrast increased significantly with lesion severity for both cameras (p<0.05). The Ge enhanced CMOS camera equipped with the larger array and smaller pixels yielded higher contrast values compared with the smaller InGaAs FPA (p<0.01). Results demonstrate that NIR lesion contrast can be used to estimate lesion severity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
NIR transillumination through the occlusal surface (A) InGaAs SWIR camera setup, and (B) Ge enhanced CMOS camera setup.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
(A) Visible-light reflectance image, (B) radiograph, (C, D) PLM images of the sections cut along the yellow dotted lines in Fig. 2A. NIR transillumination images captured with the (E) Ge enhanced CMOS camera and (F) NIR InGaAs FPA.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Lesion contrast for the Ge enhanced CMOS and InGaAs FPA imaging systems.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Barenie J, Leske G, Ripa LW. The use of fiber optic transillumination for the detection of proximal caries. Oral Surg. 1973;36:891–897. - PubMed
    1. Pine CM. Fiber-Optic Transillumination (FOTI) in Caries Diagnosis. Early Detection of Dental Caries. 1996:51–66.
    1. Peltola J, Wolf J. Fiber optics transillumination in caries diagnosis. Proc Finn Dent Soc. 1981;77:240–244. - PubMed
    1. Holt RD, Azeevedo MR. Fiber Optic transillumination and radiographs in diagnosis of approximal caries in primary teeth. Community Dent Health. 1989;6:239–247. - PubMed
    1. Mitropoulis CM. The use of fiber optic transillumination in the diagnosis of posterior approximal caries in clinical trials. Caries Res. 1985;19:379–384. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources