Diagnodent - Laser Detection of Decay

We Find Decay The Easy Way

Say goodbye to that little sharp hook we used to use to find decay in the biting surfaces of your teeth. 

In today's leading edge dentistry, we can find decay in its earliest stages - well before it can be seen on x-rays or even detected with a dental explorer (that little hook) - by using an amazing device called Diagnodent.

For the technically minded, here's how it works: Diagnodent is a light probe handpiece containing a one-milliwatt laser operating at 655 nanometers surrounded by a fluorescence detector.  The handpiece is attached to a battery powered control unit that filters, measures and quantifies fluorescence, assigning a numerical readout of 0 to 99.  The unit also provides an audible tone to alert us to the finding of levels of fluorescence in a tooth that indicates decay is present.

In simple terms, the Diagnodent reads how the tooth absorbs and reflects the laser light and tells us with numbers and sound whether decay is present and generally how much decay there is. It is especially useful in diagnosing biting surface grooves, decay around the edges of old fillings and decay in tooth cracks.

The tooth surfaces to be diagnosed need to be fairly clean and dry, so we use a variety of quick and easy methods to do that before we take the readings. This is not a thorough dental cleaning, just enough for the Diagnodent to work properly.

Using Diagnodent, we can discover decay in its very earliest stages and treat it in the most conservative way possible.

This is a tooth that was cut in half after removal for periodontal reasons. It shows perfectly why a tooth can seem to be intact when probed with a dental explorer but actually have deep decay. The Diagnodent laser tells us this decay is present. This tooth would probably have had a Diagnodent reading of between 25 and 40.

You can visit the Diagnodent website: http://www.kavousa.com/whatsnewpage.htm

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