Development of a low cost diagnostic system for dental therapy.

In this paper, we propose a low cost diagnostic system for dental therapy. This system is capable of carrying out real time observation inside the narrow root canals of oral cavity with high precision and without blind areas using a single graded-index image fiber (GRIN image fiber). The system uses the GRIN image fiber to irradiate the sample to be observed and return the sample image back to the CMOS image sensor of the microscope through the same image fiber, which is different from conventional system that uses separate fibers for illumination and observation. The results suggest that this device can illuminate and observe sample patterns of up to 10μm line and space widths with approximately the same quality as those illuminated by external light source. This precision is sufficient to detect cracks and collaterals of the root canals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]