Near-infrared imaging of enamel hypomineralization due to developmental defects

The increasing prevalence of mild hypomineralization due to developmental defects on tooth surfaces poses a challenge for caries detection and caries risk assessment and reliable methods need to be developed to discriminate such lesions from active caries lesions that need intervention. Previous studies have demonstrated that areas of hypomineralization are typically covered with a relatively thick surface layer of highly mineralized and transparent enamel similar to arrested lesions. Seventy-six extracted human teeth with mild to moderate degrees of suspicious fluorosis were imaged using near-infrared reflectance and transillumination. Enamel hypomineralization was clearly visible in both modalities. However, it was difficult to distinguish hypomineralization due to developmental defects from caries lesions with contrast measurements alone. The location of the lesion on tooth coronal surface (i.e. generalized vs. localized) seems to be the most important indicator for the presence of enamel hypomineralization due to developmental defects.