Sydney, August 19: Dentists can now size up the mineral content of tooth enamel non-invasively with the help of laser-generated ultrasound, says a new study.
This is the first time anyone has employed such a tool to find the elasticity of our teeth, besides assessing dental health and predict tooth decay and cavities.
Enamel goes through a cycle of mineral loss and restoration, through a lifetime, in which healthy teeth maintain a high mineral content.
If the balance between mineral loss and gain is lost, however, teeth can develop areas of softened enamel known as carious lesions which are precursors to cavities and permanently damaged teeth.
“The ultimate goal is to come up with a quick, efficient, cost-effective, and non-destructive way to evaluate the mineralisation of human dental enamel,” says study co-author David Hsiao-Chuan Wang, graduate student at the University of Sydney (U-S).
Wang and his adviser Simon Fleming, physics professor at the U-S Institute of Photonics and Optical Science, worked on the study with U-S dental researchers and ultrasonic researchers from National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan.
Stronger than bone, enamel is the hardest and the most mineralised substance of the human body — one of the reasons why human teeth can survive for centuries after a person has died. It envelops teeth in a protective layer that shields the underlying dentin from decay, said an U-S release.
Enamel demineralisation is caused by bad oral hygiene. Not brushing, for instance, can lead to the build-up of dental plaques, and bacteria in these plaques will absorb sugars and other carbohydrates a person chews and produce acids that will dissolve the minerals in tooth enamel.
These findings were described in the latest issue of Optics Express, Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal.
-IANS