Since the diagnosis of the intradental blood supply is difficult in dental trauma, we have designed and built a new dental pulp vitalometer based on optical reflectance measurement and exploiting the different absorption spectra of haemoglobins. The device comprises light transmitters, a receiver, electronics and a PC. Pulsed light is transmitted along the fiber optic probe, which illuminates the tooth being tested. The same probe collects the reflected light from the tooth pulp and transfers the light to the receiver. The received signal is divided into AC and DC components and a data acquisition card reads these signals, performs an A/D conversion and writes the results in a text file. A reference plethysmogram signal from a finger is used to help in processing the measured dental signal. The computer program calculates an estimate for the oxygen saturation.

Date Published: 10 February 1995
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 2331, Medical Sensors II and Fiber Optic Sensors, (10 February 1995); doi: 10.1117/12.201238

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2331:
Medical Sensors II and Fiber Optic Sensors
Anna Maria Verga Scheggi; Francesco Baldini; Pierre R. Coulet; Otto S. Wolfbeis, Editor(s)