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Ultrasound crack detection in a simulated human tooth

¹ UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, Los Angeles, California, USA; ² UCSB Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Santa Barbara, California, USA; ³ Rockwell Scientific Company LLC, Thousand Oaks, California, USA; ⁴ UCLA School of Dentistry, Los Angeles, California, USA

^* Correspondence to: Shane N White, UCLA CHS 23-087, Los Angeles CA 90095-1668, USA; E-mail: snwhite{at}ucla.edu

Received 16 September 2004; revised 6 January 2005; accepted 6 January 2005

Objective: Currently, diagnosis of cracked teeth generally depends upon the overall clinical assessment, or on exclusion of other clinical possibilities, not primarily on the direct identification of cracks themselves. Owing to its short wavelength in hard tissues and associated high resolution, ultrasound has the potential to allow detection of cracks within tooth structure. However, ultrasound detection of dental cracks has not previously been achieved. The purpose was to determine if an ultrasound imaging system was capable of imaging cracks in simulated tooth structure.

Methods: A complete ultrasound system including a novel transducer made of PLZT-98, a novel gallium-indium alloy coupling agent, and customized electronic and digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms was developed for the specific application of optimizing crack detection within teeth. A simulated tooth with a known and uniform internal structure and acoustic properties similar to those of natural enamel and dentin was designed to model a human tooth with a crack located in dentin deep to the dentino–enamel junction (DEJ). The distance between the DEJ and a crack of the simulated tooth were calculated.

Results: The system unequivocally distinguished between areas with and without a simulated crack.

Conclusion: A unique ultrasound dental crack detection system using a novel transducer; a novel coupling agent; and customized electronic and digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms has been validated in a simulated tooth.

Keywords: tooth; ultrasonography; diagnostic imaging; cracked tooth syndrome

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