Abstract

Caries – a common and widespread infectious disease - has to be detected as early as possible. Based on the need for an easy and handy tool for preventing invasive treatment a new fluorescence camera system has been developed. Using this camera the so-called porphyrins, metabolic products of oral pathogenic bacteria can be visualized. Thereby fluorophores are excited at a wavelength of 405nm by the built-in GaN-LEDs. Healthy and diseased dental hard tissues fluoresce in the green and in the red spectral range, respectively, thus allowing differentiation by coulor.

To prove the reliability of this fluorescence camera system, freshly extracted teeth were examined. Three different methods of analysis were verified and compared to give information about the lesions (sensitivity & selectivity): The extent of the fluorescence area, the integral of the red/green ratio of the lesion and the maximum red/green ratio in the area of interest. Histological sections of the teeth served as reference. In addition, the camera was compared to a tip probe sensor already available on the market.

In total, our results show that regarding the three different algorithms of analysis, the maximum of the red/green ratio is a preferential method to evaluate carious lesions. Sound tissue, enamel caries and dentin caries can be clearly distinguished. The new fluorescence camera is a handy, efficient and fast device in order to detect lesions and seems to be superior to the tip probe sensor regarding the positioning. Further studies are required.

© 2007 SPIE