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Objective To compare the efficacy of a new dentifrice containing 1.5% arginine, an insoluble calcium compound, and 1450 ppm fluoride to a matched, positive control dentifrice containing 1450 ppm fluoride in arresting and reversing early coronal caries lesions in children using Quantitative Light-induced Fluorescence (QLF). Study design 331 children from Chiang Mai, Thailand, aged 7–14 years, with one or more visible early enamel caries lesions on the upper anterior teeth, completed the study. The new dentifrice contained 1.5% arginine, an insoluble calcium compound, and 1450 ppm fluoride, as sodium monofluorophosphate; the matched positive control contained 1450 ppm fluoride only. Subjects brushed twice daily at home and additionally once on school days under teacher's supervision. Digital images of the upper six anterior teeth were captured at the baseline, 3- and 6-month examinations using a custom apparatus for reproducible acquisition of Quantitative Light-induced Fluorescence data. Results At the 3-month examination, the Δ Q (representing lesion volume) for the test group decreased from a mean of 28.62 at baseline to 20.53 mm 2 % and for the positive control group to 23.38 mm 2 %. The difference between groups was not statistically significant ( p = 0.055). At the 6-month examination, the Δ Q decreased for the test group to 15.85 mm 2 % and for the positive control group to 20.35 mm 2 %. The difference between groups was statistically significant ( p Conclusion A new dentifrice containing 1.5% arginine, an insoluble calcium compound, and 1450 ppm fluoride, as sodium monofluorophosphate, provided statistically significant superior efficacy in arresting and reversing active coronal caries lesions in children than brushing with a matched positive control dentifrice containing fluoride alone.

Quantitative Light-induced Fluorescence (QLF) has been used to measure tooth stain in vitro; however the current analysis method cannot be used in vivo, as it requires regions of interest to be surrounded by unstained tissue. In this study, an algorithm was developed to detect stain on QLF images of teeth captured in vivo. It uses convex hulls to reconstruct an image of the tooth, without stain, based on clean areas of the image, and subtracts the captured image from the reconstruction to find areas darkened by stain. A tooth outline (mask) must be provided to guide the reconstruction. Three versions of the algorithm are tested on images taken during a stain development study, using a range of values for the threshold parameter. The stain employed was produced using Chlorhexidine mouth rinse. The software output correlates well with manual scoring (Pearson's>0.7; p