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Light beam to detect Dental Caries
According to researchers at Indiana University School of Dentistry USA, light beam can be used to identify dental caries just as it is getting started.
The new technology called ‘Quantitative light fluorescence’ uses a high intensity light beam to measure the loss of calcium and phosphate from a tooth. Dr. George K Stookey reported that by the time we detect dental caries through X ray and visual examination, they are often 2 years old. Quantitative light fluorescence detects a lesion near inception.
Where there is loss of calcium and phosphate, it will alter the pathway of light beam. This information is then transformed into a computer image and saved for future reference. Progress of decalcification can be determined by superimposing the images of different examinations.
This technique can also detect the caries that develops around the margins and tooth restorations.
Source: Internet
"Magic" wand means less painful dental injections
There is good news for nervous kids—and adults—who are fearful of painful dental injections. A new device called the "Wand" may reduce pain in kids getting injections into the palate during dental visits, according to a new study.
What may seem like magic to millions of reluctant patients, the Wand is in fact, a computerized delivery system that injects local anesthetic at a very controlled rate.
"The Wand is basically a regular needle very similar to one that is traditionally used to inject anesthetic solution. However, the Wand needle is attached (via tubing) to a pump. Instead of the dentist pushing the anesthetic solution into the patient, a computerized pump does the job," according to Dr. Keith Allen of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. Allen is the co-author of a study in the December issue of Pediatric Dentistry that looked at the usefulness of the product.
The pump pushes the solution in very slowly and steadily. This
study showed that the pump did relieve much of the discomfort traditionally
associated with an injection into the roof of the mouth.
Of course this injection still hurts a little. But injections
into the palate are always the worst and the Wand appears to relieve a good deal
of that discomfort.
SOURCE: Pediatric Dentistry 22:458-462, 2000