Mineralization of Early Stage Carious Lesions In Vitro—A Quantitative Approach

Dentistry Journal

Hans Deyhle²  Iwona Dziadowiec²  Lucy Kind¹  Peter Thalmann²  Georg Schulz²  Bert Müller² 

[1] University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW, Gründenstrasse 40, 4132 Muttenz, Switzerland; E-Mail:;Biomaterials Science Center, University of Basel, Gewerbestrasse 14, 4123 Allschwil, Switzerland; E-Mails:

关键词: enamel caries;    mineralization;    demineralization;    self-assembling peptide;    image registration;    micro computed tomography;    joint histogram;   

DOI  :  10.3390/dj3040111

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Micro computed tomography has been combined with dedicated data analysis for the in vitro quantification of sub-surface enamel lesion mineralization. Two artificial white spot lesions, generated on a human molar crown in vitro, were examined. One lesion was treated with a self-assembling peptide intended to trigger nucleation of hydroxyapatite crystals. We non-destructively determined the local X-ray attenuation within the specimens before and after treatment. The three-dimensional data was rigidly registered. Three interpolation methods, i.e., nearest neighbor, tri-linear, and tri-cubic interpolation were evaluated. The mineralization of the affected regions was quantified via joint histogram analysis, i.e., a voxel-by-voxel comparison of the tomography data before and after mineralization. After ten days incubation, the mean mineralization coefficient reached 35.5% for the peptide-treated specimen compared to 11.5% for the control. This pilot study does not give any evidence for the efficacy of peptide treatment nor allows estimating the necessary number of specimens to achieve significance, but shows a sound methodological approach on the basis of the joint histogram analysis.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.