Development of a device for determining the root canal contamination

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The purpose of this study was to design a device which determines the root canal contamination by analyzing the color of the reflected light from the canal wall.1.The spectrum analysis was made with the reflected light from the enlarged canal wall and the dirty one. The spectrum pattern with the enlarged canal wall was similar to that obtained with the light source, while that with the dirty one showed a tendency of the increased light intensity at wavelengths longer than 600nm.2.The reflected light intensities at 560nm and 650nm were measured on the enlarged canal wall and the dirty one. There was a difference of the ratio of the light intensities at these wavelengths between the enlarged and the dirty.3.A trial device for determining the root canal contamination was made, and its clinical applicability was examined. The light source was a white light, and an optical probe which illuminated and collected the reflected light laterally to its long axis was used. The device simultaneously measured the light intensities at 560nm and 650nm using 2 photo-diodes and compared them at the same time, and expressed the color of the reflected light from the sample by the polarity and amplitude of the output signal. The polarity of the output was the same between those obtained with a blue color board, a white color board, and a clean tooth surface. While, a red color board and a dirty tooth surface produced the opposite polarity to that obtained with the clean tooth surface. A large output signal amplitude was obtained when the tooth surface was dyed red.The results obtained in this study indicated that the trial device could develop as a root canal contamination detector. The detection system could improve with the modification of the system such as the selection of wavelengths of the light, use of a laser light, the alteration of the signal processing, and dying the tooth.