Noninvasive diagnosis of early caries with polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT)

There is no diagnostic technology presently available utilizing non-ionizing radiation that can image the state of demineralization of dental enamel in vivo for the detection, characterization and monitoring of early, incipient caries lesions. In this study, a Polarization Sensitive Optical Coherence Tomography (PS-OCT) system was evaluated for its potential for the non-invasive diagnosis of early carious lesions. We demonstrated clear discrimination in PS-OCT imags between regions of normal and demineralized enamel in bovine enamel blocks containing well-characterized artificial lesions. Moreover, high-resolution, cross- sectional images were acquired that clearly discriminate between the normal and carious regions of extracted human teeth. Regions that appeared to be demineralized in the PS- OCT imags were verified using histological thin sections examined under polarized light. The PS-OCT system discriminates between normal and carious regions by measuring the state of polarization of the back-scattered 1310 nm light, which is affected by the state of demineralization of the enamel. The demineralized regions of enamel have a large scattering coefficient, thus depolarizing the incident light. This initial study shows that PS-OCT has great potential for the detection, characterization, and monitoring of incipient caries lesions.