DETECTION OF EARLY PROXIMAL CARIES WITH LASER FLUORESCENCE

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Journal of the Korean Academy of Pediatric Dentistry 2004;31(2):236-246.
Published online May 31, 2004.

DETECTION OF EARLY PROXIMAL CARIES WITH LASER FLUORESCENCE

레이저 형광법을 이용한 인접면 우식증의 진단

설재헌, 오유향, 이난영, 이상호

조선대학교 치과대학 소아치과학교실

Correspondence: ,

Abstract

Artificial carious lesions in various depths were observed with visual examination using light transillumination, bite-wing radiography, laser fluorescence, and dye-enhanced laser fluorescence to determine the reproducibility, correlation of each diagnostic method, diagnostic sensitivity and diagnostic specificity. And optical densities according to demineralized times were measured whether laser fluorescence could be used as a quantitative diagnostic method. The following results were obtained whether laser fluorescence could be used for diagnosis of initial proximal caries. 1. Tau-c values of visual examination was 0.08 which showed lowest reproducibility and those of bite-wing radiography, laser fluorescence, dye-enhanced laser fluorescence were 0.60, 0.48, and 0.64, respectively which showed relatively high reproducibility. 2. The correlation between demineralization time and each examination was the highest in dye-enhanced laser fluorescence(γ=0.51) followed by laser fluorescence(γ=0.43), bite-wing radiograph(γ=0.35), and visual examination(γ=0.33). Dye-enhanced laser fluorescence and laser fluorescence showed significant correlation with demineralization time. 3. The sensitivity of laser fluorescence and dye-enhanced laser fluorescence for diagnosing approximal caries based on bite-wing radiography were 67%, 100% and those of specificity were 57%, 11% which showed diagnostic specificity was relatively lower than sensitivity. 4. The difference in optical density(DFR) between sound teeth and carious lesions according to lesion depth was high with dye-enhanced laser fluorescence compared with laser fluorescence. DFR measured with laser fluorescence according to changes in lesion depth was statistically significant but was not statistically significant with dye-enhanced laser fluorescence. Based on these results, laser fluorescence and dye-enhanced laser fluorescence have comparable diagnostic power as bite-wing radiography in early diagnosis of proximal caries.

Key Words: Proximal caries, Diagnosis, Laser fluorescence