According to recent research published in the Journal of Dentistry, investigators have found out that cross-polarized optical coherence tomography (CP-OCT) is a nondestructive, no ionized-radiation caries detection technique, which seems suitable to detect non-cavitated approximal caries and observing the Coronal-plane appears better than Horizontal-plane.
Haixia Xing and associates from the Department of General Dentistry, Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology, Beijing, China carried out the present study with the objective to assess the detection ability and the effect of analyzing plane of CP-OCT for non-cavitated approximal caries.
The authors selected a total of thirty human extracted premolars based on micro-computed tomography [μ-CT: μ- CT = 0: sound (n = 12), μ-CT = 1/2: caries into outer-/inner-half of enamel (n = 6 each), μ-CT = 3: caries into outer one-third of dentine (n = 6)].
All the teeth were mounted in a custom- made device to simulate approximal contact, and scanned from the marginal ridge above the contact area. CP-OCT images were analyzed by deepest caries extension from horizontal and coronal planes and repeated 48-hrs later. Sensitivity, specificity, percent correct, area under the ROC curve (Az), intra-examiner repeatability and correlation with μ-CT were determined.
The following interesting results were drafted-
Sensitivity/specificity/Az for Horizontalplane, Coronal-plane, and Deepest from both planes were 94percent/58percent/0.76,81percent/100percent/0.90, and 94 %/58 %/0.82.
Coronal-plane had significantly higher specificity than Horizontal-plane and Deepest (p = 0.004) but Horizontal-plane and Deepest were not different (p = 1.00).
Horizontal-plane had significantly lower Az than Deepest (p = 0.048), but Coronal-plane was not different than Horizontal-plane (p = 0.07) or Deepest (p = 0.20).
Correlation coefficients were Horizontal-plane (0.53, p < 0.001), Coronal-plane (0.84, p < 0.001), and Deepest (0.66, p < 0.001).
Therefore, the authors concluded that "within the limitations of this study, CP-OCT could be used to detect non-cavitated approximal caries. Analysis using the Coronal-plane is superior to the Horizontal-plane."
It is challenging to detect non-cavitated approximal caries clinically due to the adjacent tooth. CP-OCT is a nondestructive, no ionized-radiation caries detection technique. CP-OCT seems suitable to detect non-cavitated approximal caries and observing the Coronal-plane appears better than Horizontal-plane, they further added.