Crescent Dental is now equipped with Spectra caries detection system. Spectra is a lightweight handpiece used as an aid for detecting caries, especially early stage enamel caries and hard-to-detect fissure caries.
How does it work?
The Spectra handpiece has a high resolution, high sensitivity CCD sensor and special LED lamps that emit high energy blue-violet light at a wavelength of 405nm. Light of this particular wavelength causes porphyrins from caries producing bacteria to flouresce. When used with the special Visix software areas of caries fluoresce in red whereas healthy enamel in contrast flouresces green enabling the dentist to identify carious lesions. The software also assigns a numerical value to the amount of red flourescence which corresponds with the amount of bacterial contamination. The higher the number the higher the bacterial contamination of enamel. The flourescence images can be stored in a patient's database, so that the progression or arrest of the early carious lesions can be tracked over time.
What do the flourescent images look like?
