The purpose of this study was to assess the potential of polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) to measure non-destructively the severity of natural and artificial caries lesions in dentin and determine the efficacy of intervention with anti-caries agents. Although several studies have demonstrated the utility of PS-OCT to image caries lesions in enamel and to quantify the lesion severity, only a few studies have focused on lesions in dentin. In this study images of natural root caries lesions on extracted human teeth were acquired with PS-OCT. In addition artificial lesions were produced in dentin after 12 days of exposure to a demineralization solution at a pH of 5.0. Before exposure, three incisions were made on the sample surfaces using Er:YAG laser irradiation and selected areas were treated with topical fluoride. PS-OCT images were acquired using a high power (45-mw) 1310-nm superluminescent diode with a bandwidth of 35-nm. PS-OCT was able to measure demineralization in dentin to a depth of ~ 1 mm. Polarized light microscopy and microradiography were used to measure lesion severity on histological thin sections for comparison. PS-OCT successfully measured the inhibition of demineralization by topical fluoride. Er:YAG laser irradiation did not significantly increase or decrease the rate of dentin demineralization.
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