Abstract

Dental caries is generally acknowledged as a process whereby bacterial acids destroy dental tissues. The traditional methods of caries diagnosis (dental probe, x-rays, visual inspection) are very limit to determinate initial and undermining caries. Optical and laser technology offers a more sensitive technique for the characterization of teeth. Fluorescence spectroscopy (FS) for caries detection have already shown to be a successful method for odontology [1, 2]. A caries detector device ( KaVo DIAGNOdent™ ) based on FS can be found commercially. The instrument operates based on the intensity ratio between the fluorescence emitted from carious to noncarious tissue in the near infrared (~700-750nm) spectral region.

© 2001 EPS