Development and initial testing of a pulse oximetry prototype for measuring dental pulp vitality

Abstract

The guiding principle of endodontic treatment is to preserve teeth while maintaining its aesthetic and functional roles. To accomplish this goal the assessment of teeth pulp vitality is very important since it will determine the procedures that should be adopted and define the therapy strategy. Currently, the most commonly tests for determining dental pulp state are the thermal and the electrical tests, which are based on nerve response and, because of that, have a relatively high rate of false positives and false negatives cases. In this work we present a simple test to be used in the clinical setting for evaluating noninvasively the existence of blood perfusion in dental pulp. This test is based on pulse oximetry principle that was devised to indirectly measure the amount of oxygen in blood. Although pulse oximetry has already demonstrated its usefulness in clinical environment its usage for the determination of dental pulp vitality has been frustrated by several factors, notably the absence of a suitable sensor to the complex shape of the various coronary teeth. We developed a suitable sensor and present the first trials with promising results, regarding the ability for distinguish teeth with and without blood perfusion.