Intraoral Ultrasound Probe for Dental Hard Tissue Imaging

用于牙科硬组织成像的口内超声探头

• 批准号: 8525008
• 负责人: Rahul Singh
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: FARUS, LLC
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-05-01 至 2015-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8525008
• 关键词: Acoustics; Adult; Affect; Alloys; American; Bone Surface; Case Series; Case Study; Clinical; Clinical Trials; Consensus; Coupling; Decision Trees; Defect; Dental; Dental Enamel; Dental Implants; Dental Porcelain; Dental Pulp; Dental caries; Dental crowns; Dentin; Dentinoenamel junction; Dentists; Detection; Devices; Diagnosis; Diagnostic; Diagnostic radiologic examination; Digital X-Ray; Disease; Early Diagnosis; Emerging Technologies; Encapsulated; Endodontically-Treated Tooth; Endodontics; Foundations; Fracture; Gallium; Goals; Gold; Guidelines; Health; High Prevalence; Human; Image; Imaging Device; Imaging Techniques; In Vitro; Incidence; Indium; Individual; Infection; Inflammation; Intervention; Lead; Literature; Location; Mandible; Maps; Measurement; Measures; Membrane; Methods; Modality; Monitor; Operative Surgical Procedures; Optical Coherence Tomography; Oral; Oral cavity; Paper; Patients; Phase; Publishing; Pulp Canals; Pulp Chambers; Recording of previous events; Reporting; Research Priority; Resolution; Retinal Cone; Risk; Sampling Biases; Scanning; School Dentistry; Sensitivity and Specificity; Shotguns; Signs and Symptoms; Silver; Simulate; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; Structure; Surface; Symptoms; System; Testing; Therapeutic; Time; Tissues; Tooth Fractures; Tooth structure; Translating; Treatment Protocols; Ultrasonic Therapy; Ultrasonography; Validation; Visual; base; commercial application; cone-beam computed tomography; design; effective therapy; efficacy testing; ergonomics; evidence base; imaging probe; novel; patient population; public health relevance; research and development; restoration; restorative material; tooth surface; treatment planning

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The detection and diagnosis of fractures in teeth is a difficult but very common clinical problem that has been specifically identified as a top research priority by the American Association of Endodontists Foundation. Currently, dentists use patient history, visual examination, comprehensive endodontic examination and radiography to diagnose cracked teeth. However, clinical signs and symptoms are highly variable and are often insufficient to reach a precise diagnosis; signs and symptoms associated with cracks are also associated with other very common diagnoses. Although presence of a visible fracture line in enamel and a high ratio of restoration to total natural crown volume are associated with an increased incidence of tooth fracture, this finding applies to a patient population, not to the diagnosis of cracks in individual patients. Dental radiographs or cone beam computed tomographs generally do not show hairline cracks themselves until some separation has occurred, only subsequent bony damage following bacterial colonization and inflammation or infection. An inexpensive, portable, non-invasive, non-ionizing method of identifying cracks would have significant therapeutic value. Accurate diagnosis would allow selection of appropriate interventions: none, monitoring, root canal treatment and/or coronal coverage, or extraction. Our approach is to use ultrasound as a non-invasive imaging tool for the detection of fractures in teeth. Ultrasound is highly effective in detecting physical discontinuities such as fractures or detached restorations, even if such discontinuities are smaller than the acoustic wavelength. Ultrasound also has the ability to penetrate most hard structures, including restorations - a task that is difficult for radiography. Therefore, ultrasonography may provide a significant benefit to patients by allowing early detection of tooth defects as well as treatment planning, avoiding under- or over- or inappropriate treatment. An additional benefit of ultrasound is that it is inherently non-ionizing, thereby avoiding the health risks associated with radiography. The proposed novel probe design will efficiently couple ultrasound energy directly into the tooth, and will be capable of imaging surface and sub-surface features within the tooth, including fractures, caries, and the boundaries of the pulp chamber. This proposal will focus on tooth fractures; however, the probe will be designed for volumetric imaging of the whole tooth. The focus of this Phase I SBIR effort is to design and integrate a customized ultrasound probe for imaging of tooth fractures, and to demonstrate technical feasibility through in vitro and ex vivo studies.

描述（由申请人提供）：牙齿骨折的检测和诊断是一个困难但非常常见的临床问题，已被美国牙髓病医师协会基金会明确确定为首要研究重点。目前，牙医使用患者病史、目视检查、综合牙髓检查和射线照相来诊断牙齿隐裂。然而，临床体征和症状变化很大，通常不足以做出准确的诊断；与裂缝相关的体征和症状也与其他非常常见的诊断相关。尽管牙釉质中存在可见断裂线以及修复体与自然牙冠总体积的高比例与牙齿骨折发生率增加有关，但这一发现适用于患者群体，不适用于个别患者的裂纹诊断。牙科射线照片或锥形束计算机断层扫描通常不会显示出细小的裂纹本身，直到发生一些分离，仅显示细菌定植和炎症或感染后的骨损伤。一种廉价、便携、非侵入性、非电离的裂缝识别方法将具有显着的治疗价值。准确的诊断将允许选择适当的干预措施：无、监测、根管治疗和/或冠状覆盖或拔牙。 我们的方法是使用超声波作为非侵入性成像工具来检测牙齿骨折。超声波在检测物理不连续性（例如骨折或脱落的修复体）方面非常有效，即使此类不连续性小于声波波长。超声波还能够穿透大多数硬结构，包括修复体——这是放射线照相术难以完成的任务。因此，超声检查可以早期发现牙齿缺陷并制定治疗计划，避免治疗不足、过度或不适当，从而为患者带来显着益处。超声波的另一个好处是它本质上是非电离的，从而避免了与放射线照相相关的健康风险。 所提出的新颖探头设计将有效地将超声能量直接耦合到牙齿中，并且能够对牙齿内的表面和次表面特征进行成像，包括骨折、龋齿和牙髓腔的边界。该提案将重点关注牙齿骨折；然而，探头将设计用于整个牙齿的体积成像。第一阶段 SBIR 工作的重点是设计和集成用于牙齿骨折成像的定制超声探头，并通过体外和离体研究证明技术可行性。