Study of the Multi-Directional Intraoral X-Ray System for Clinical Diagnosis of Dental Caries

For minimizing patient inconvenience caused by intraoral sensor discomfort and unnecessary radiational exposure of diagnosis of dental caries, we developed a new system that insert the x-ray source tube (diameter: 3 mm, tube voltage: ~ 55 kV, tube current: ~ 300 uA) inside of the oral cavity and placed the the radiation acquisition device outside. The purpose of this study was to investigate the optimal acquisition conditions for the diagnosis of dental caries and to evaluate the image performance of the new intraoral x-ray imaging system. The 33 model sets were made with 3 teeth were randomly selected from 99 extracted human teeth, total of 5 conventional radiographic sets as control groups and 1 experimental set were prepared after cavity forming the 4 sites of artificial proximal caries(grade 1 to 4). Total 198 images were obtained and those were read by seven dentists of the grades and the correct answer rates were calculated and analyzed by one - way ANOVA. The new x-ray images were shown that there is no significant difference in reading for the diagnosis of proximal caries. Therefore the new x-ray system might be considerable for using in the clinical dental caries diagnosis, especially initial caries stage.