New Dental Imaging Tool May Help Stop Cavities

Dental technology continues to evolve and advance, and with those advances, we have been able to salvage people’s teeth when beforehand they would have been removed. Although we have come very far in technology, it doesn’t mean that we have the entire dental market cornered. Cavities still persist and people’s oral health can still decline if they aren’t careful.

Currently, dentists are only able to detect caries at relatively late stages through X-ray imaging and visual inspection. Due to this, sometimes lesions in the teeth can be missed. These lesions are typically caused by the acidic structure of plaque and the multiple food acids consumed almost daily by patients.

STOPPING CAVITIES BEFORE THEY START

A recent development, however, by several at York University in Toronto shows that another method of discovering these lesions is much more powerful and could soon be perfected and available on the dental market. The method utilizes thermophotonic lock-in imaging (TPLI) as a carie detection technology.

According to the report, the researchers submersed an extracted human molar into an acidic solution and were able to discover the presence of a lesion after the second day. The researchers conducted the examination of the molar every two days until the tenth day and noticed that a trained dentist was not able to visually detect the presence of the lesion even after 10 days.

According to an article discussing the research, the TPLI has “the benefits of being noncontact, noninvasive, and low-cost, and has great potential as a commercially viable diagnostic imaging device for dentistry.”

This could lead to stopping cavities before they enter lesions in teeth and could assist dentists greatly by providing them with insight on the state of a patient’s teeth that they otherwise wouldn’t know.

At Signature Smiles, our dentists rely on the latest in dental technology because our goal is to serve our patients in the most efficient and effective way possible. If you are searching for a dental clinic that focuses on providing the very best for their patients, then contact us. We specialize in general dentistry, pediatric dentistry, orthodontics, and more. We look forward to serving you.