Dental fissure sealants were shown to be effective for prevention of fissure caries in individuals with high caries risk. However, their inhibitory effect on enamel at a distance from sealant margin has not been thoroughly investigated. Previous studies have confirmed effectiveness of optical coherence tomography (OCT) for imaging of sound and demineralized enamel. The purpose of this study was to assess the potential of cross-polarization OCT (CP-OCT) as a non-destructive tool to evaluate the efficacy of fissure sealants on inhibition of demineralization of adjacent enamel. In this study, fissure sealants were applied to bovine enamel preparations (0.5×3×1 mm³, width× length× depth) and specimen surface was covered with varnish with the exception of 0.5 mm of peripheral enamel around the fissures margins. Then, demineralized enamel lesions were produced by immersion of specimens in demineralization solution (pH 4.5) for 7 days and serial cross-sectional OCT images were obtained from each specimen. The OCT images were acquired using a high scan rate (30 kHz) continuous wavelength scanning diode laser centred near 1310 nm (Santec, Japan). In addition, stereomicroscope was used to observe enamel inhibition zones on histological sections after trimming specimens to the same OCT cross-section for confirmation. CP-OCT images showed subsurface enamel lesions adjacent to fissure sealants. Also, demineralized lesions were formed away from the fissure sealants in some specimens as enamel margins resisted demineralization, forming zones of inhibition at enamel-sealant interface. This study suggests that CP-OCT could be used to nondestructively evaluate demineralization inhibition effect of dental materials in enamel.

Date Published: 15 March 2019
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 10953, Medical Imaging 2019: Biomedical Applications in Molecular, Structural, and Functional Imaging, 1095310 (15 March 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2511822

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10953:
Medical Imaging 2019: Biomedical Applications in Molecular, Structural, and Functional Imaging
Barjor Gimi; Andrzej Krol, Editor(s)