Validating OCT and Raman spectroscopy for assessment of tooth de/remineralization

描述(由申请人提供)：检测早期龋齿并监测其损伤和修复的动态过程是牙医目前可用的方法具有挑战性的任务。传统的诊断方法依赖于主观的临床标准，早期病变往往无法发现。因此，许多病变要么直到进展到空化状态才被诊断出来，要么尽管可能通过再矿化方法(如氟化物策略)阻止和修复病变，但病变仍被不必要地恢复。因此，需要高灵敏度和高特异度的新技术来早期发现和监测非空洞病变。最近，各种新的方法被开发为潜在的诊断工具。然而，这些技术仍然存在主观性、检查者内和检查者间高度变异性以及假阳性结果的问题。此外，这些技术需要进一步验证，然后才能应用于龋齿临床试验，并最终应用于评估牙齿表面脱矿和再矿化的临床环境。这项建议的目的是验证一种新的多模式技术，该技术结合了成像(光学相干断层扫描，OCT)和光谱(拉曼光谱，RS)技术，以改进对早期龋损的检测和纵向评估。为了实现这一目标，将改进用于邻近龋齿检测的口腔内多模式探头，以进行更广泛的龋齿筛查。多模式OCT-RS方法在评估不同牙面和结构的牙面去矿化/再矿化方面的有效性将得到验证。这一过程包括在拔除的人类牙齿上测试该方法，并将结果与金标准方法(横向显微放射照相)进行比较。接下来，将进行几项患者志愿者研究，以验证该技术在体内用于临床牙面评估的有效性。在为期四年的项目结束时，将证明这一新工具的有效性和实用性。这项拟议的研究研究了一种新的方法，该方法涉及两种基于光的技术，用于检测和持续监测早期龋齿。早期识别使牙科医生能够使用氟化物治疗等保守方法来阻止和逆转损害，而不是不可逆转地切割和修复牙齿结构。用经济高效和侵入性较小的方法更好地诊断和管理龋齿，将改善患者的口腔健康和个人的整体福祉。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Detecting early dental caries and monitoring its dynamic process of damage and repair are challenging tasks with current methods available to dentists. Conventional diagnostic methods rely on subjective clinical criteria with early lesions often going undetected. As a result, many lesions are either undiagnosed until they have progressed to a cavitated state, or lesions are unnecessarily restored despite the potential to arrest and repair the lesion with remineralization methods such as fluoride strategies. Therefore the need exists for new techniques with high sensitivity and specificity for early detection and monitoring of non-cavitated lesions. Recently, various new methods have been developed as potential diagnostic tools. However, these techniques still suffer from subjectivity, high intra- and inter-examiner variability and false positive results. In addition, these techniques require further validation before they are implemented into caries clinical trials and eventually into clinical settings for assessing tooth surface demineralization and remineralization. The objective of this proposal is to validate a new multi-modal technology that combines imaging (optical coherence tomography, OCT) and spectroscopic (Raman spectroscopy, RS) techniques for improved detection and longitudinal assessment of early caries lesions. To achieve this goal, an intra-oral multi-modal probe designed for approximal caries detection will be refined for broader caries screening. The validity of using the multi-modal OCT-RS approach will be validated for assessing tooth surface de-/remineralization at various tooth surfaces and structures. This procedure involves testing the methodology on extracted human teeth and comparing the findings with a gold-standard method (transverse microradiography). Next, several patient volunteer studies will be conducted to validate the technology in vivo for clinical tooth surface assessment. At the end of the four-year project, the validity and utility of this new tool will be demonstrated. The proposed research studies a novel method that involves two light-based technologies for the detection and on-going monitoring of early dental decay. Early identification allows dentists to arrest and reverse the damage using conservative methods such as fluoride treatment, rather than the irreversible cutting and restoration of tooth structure. Better diagnosis and management of dental decay with cost-effective and less invasive methods will improve the patient's oral health and overall general well-being of the individual.