Polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography for quantifying the severity of natural caries lesions on occlusal surfaces

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that Polarization Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography (PS-OCT) can be used to image early dental caries. The purpose of this study was to compare the measured integrated reflectivity of natural caries lesions with the mineral loss measured using digital microradiography in order to determine if PS-OCT can be used as a nondestructive <i>in vivo</i> method to measure the severity of dental decay in the important occlusal surfaces. A PS-OCT system operating at 1310-nm was used to acquire polarization resolved images of natural caries lesions on the occlusal surfaces of extracted teeth. The integrated reflectivity from lesion areas was compared to the integrated mineral loss from the same lesion area measured using digital microradiography. There was a strong correlation between the integrated mineral loss of the caries lesion measured using high resolution digital microradiography and the integrated reflectivity in the perpendicular polarization axis of the PS-OCT system demonstrating the potential for this method to nondestructively monitor the severity of caries lesion in the occlusal pit and fissure where most new decay is found. Although we find these results encouraging, we desire a higher correlation between the integrated mineral loss and the integrated reflectivity and we believe a higher correlation is attainable with better matching of the PS-OCT scans and the histological thin sections.