IntraOral Scanning in dental Caries

Description du projet

Détecter les caries grâce à une technologie innovante de balayage intra-oral

Les caries, qui concernent 2 milliards d’adultes et 500 millions d’enfants dans le monde, constituent un fardeau sanitaire et économique considérable. Les méthodes de diagnostic actuelles, qui reposent sur l’examen visuel et la radiographie dentaire, peuvent passer à côté de lésions subtiles tout en présentant des risques liés à l’exposition aux radiations. Ces lacunes empêchent un suivi précis en temps opportun de l’évolution des caries. Dans ce contexte, le projet IOSC, financé par l’UE, fera appel à un scanner intra-oral basé sur la fluorescence et la technologie infrarouge pour un suivi précis. Dirigé par l’université de Malte, le projet mènera des essais cliniques pour évaluer la précision de cette technologie comparée aux méthodes conventionnelles. Les résultats devraient favoriser une surveillance plus sûre et non invasive. En tout état de cause, cette recherche façonnera les soins dentaires de demain.

Objectif

Caries disease is a global health and economy burden experienced by 2 billion of adults and 500 millions of children around the world. Visual exam and dental radiography are the standard methods for diagnosing and monitoring dental caries and present shortcomings: subtle lesions of caries cannot be visual or radiographically detected and are highly sensitive to the examiner; besides it, X-rays involve ionizing radiation which limits monitoring at small intervals and has structures superimposition. Recently, TRIOS 4 (3Shape, Copenhagen, Denmark) intraoral scanning (IOS) brings caries aid monitoring tool based on fluorescence and infrared technologies. Despite in vitro studies suggesting its applicability, there is no clinical evidence of its accuracy (true positives and negatives). In this context, the goal of this project is to clinically assess the accuracy of this novel approach for detecting and monitoring dental caries. After ethics approval, I will examine patient’s teeth under dental caries treatment in Faculty of Dental Surgery of University of Malta using visual exam and dental radiography, then I will scan teeth with TRIOS 4 IOS using fluorescence and infrared technologies. Using these clinical digital data, I will output: 1) the accuracy of TRIOS4 compared with standard methods; 2) if the result changes between professionals - in a multicentre approach. If firmly established, it will be a way to change caries monitoring in a safe and non-invasive approach; if not, it will provide scientific evidence for improvement, future studies and development of new tools. The results will be interesting for scientist, dentists, industry and citizens, as caries is a common disease with high global prevalence. For reaching such audience, communication, dissemination and exploitation is planned using open access practices through data repository, green and gold routes, as well as in mass media.