Development of a high-resolution photothermal coherence tomography clinical device for detection and 3-D mapping of early dental caries

龋病仍然是儿童和成人中最常见的慢性病，给家庭、政府和卫生保健系统带来了巨大的经济和社会负担。在5-17岁的青少年中，龋齿比哮喘、花粉症或慢性支气管炎更常见，是导致大量缺课和工作的原因。到19岁时，68%的年轻人经历过恒牙龋齿。在成年人中也观察到了类似的趋势(在20岁到之间的成年人中，有92%的人在他们的恒牙上有龋齿)。龋病的流行表明，在目前的牙科护理标准中，由于临床检测工具和技术对早期龋齿不敏感，这种疾病没有得到有效的管理。这项拟议的项目旨在开发一种高分辨率的临床设备，用于使用激光和红外摄像机检测和三维绘制早期龋齿。拟议的设备预计将在病变仍可重新矿化或愈合的早期揭示牙齿脱矿，创造一种无痛、经济有效和非侵入性的龋齿治疗方法，而不是传统的钻探和填充方法。这项研究的结果不仅对加拿大人作为一种早期的牙齿诊断成像技术具有广泛的实用价值，而且对牙科研究人员开展广泛的牙科研究主题也具有普遍意义。早期发现龋齿的好处包括：增加了成功再矿化的机会，降低了龋齿风险，降低了治疗成本。

Dental caries remains the most prevalent chronic disease in both children and adults,imposing significant financial and societal burdens on families, governments, and health caresystems. Among 5-17 year olds, tooth decay is more common than asthma, hay fever orchronic bronchitis and is responsible for large numbers of days missed from school and work.By age 19, 68 percent of youth have experienced tooth decay in permanent teeth. Similartrends are observed in adults (92% of adults 20 to 64 have had dental caries in theirpermanent teeth). The prevalence of caries suggests that the disease is not being effectivelymanaged in the current standard of care in Dentistry due to insensitivity of clinical detectiontools and techniques to early caries. The proposed project aims to develop a high resolutionclinical device for detection and 3-D mapping of early dental caries using lasers and infraredcameras. The proposed device is expected to reveal dental demineralization at very earlystages when the lesion can still be remineralized or healed, creating a painless, cost-effectiveand non-invasive treatment for tooth decay instead of the conventional drilling and fillingapproach. The outcome of this research will be widely useful not only as an early dentalcaries diagnostic imaging technology for Canadians, but also universally to dentalresearchers for carrying out a broad spectrum of research themes in Dentistry. Early dentalcaries detection advantages include: increased chance of successful remineralization,decreased risk of cavities and reduced treatment costs.