Journal of Oral Tissue Engineering



ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Application of Terahertz Waves for Dental Treatment

Yoshihiro NISHITANI1, Naoya KURAHASHI2,
Masahiro HEIMA3, Koki MIURA1, Mihiro ITOTAGAWA1,
Takahiko SHIRAOGAWA1, Yoshinori SAKANOUE2
and Sadami TSUTSUMI4

1 Department of Restorative Dentistry and Endodontology, Kagoshima University
Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Kagoshima, Japan
2 Kyoto Prefectural Technology Center for Small and Medium Enterprises
3 Department of Global Relations and Human Sciences in Dentistry,
Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences
4 Applied Electronics Laboratory, Kanazawa Institute of Technology


J Oral Tissue Engin 2021; 19(1): 15-20.

SYNOPSIS
The terahertz wave, which is expected to be used in the future medical field, was examined for the possibility of being applied to conservative pulp treatment. For example, in order to avoid pulpectomy in the deep caries treatment, it is extremely useful to detect the remaining amount of carious dentin and the distance to the pulp in the cavity. As a pilot study of application to dental treatment, the propagation velocity of terahertz waves in enamel and dentin was measured. As controls, natural single crystal of apatite and HIP-treated powder apatite were also measured. As a result, enamel and dentin had different propagation velocities. It suggests that not only enamel and dentin in the oral cavity but also sound dentin and carious dentin with different calcification degrees can be identified by terahertz waves because the propagation rate increases depending on the density of apatite in the sample.

Key words: terahertz waves, enamel, dentin, caries, conservative pulp treatment



All documents in this paper

J-Stage https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jarde/19/1/19_19_15/_article

DOI https://doi.org/10.11223/jarde.19.15