Effect of probe design and bandwidth on laser Doppler readings from vital and root-filled teeth

Laser Doppler flowmetry has been shown to be useful in assessing blood flow in teeth. This study investigated the effect of probe design and bandwidth on laser Doppler readings from vital and root-filled teeth using an 810 nm light source, and established the sensitivity and specificity of each probe/bandwidth combination. Readings were taken from 20 human subjects with a root-filled tooth and a vital contralateral tooth using each of the probes with 0.125 mm, 0.375 mm and 0.5 mm fibre separations and three bandwidths (3.1 kHz, 14.9 kHz and 20 kHz). Ten pairs of traces from each group were examined by 10 trained observers who indicated whether the traces had come from a vital or root-filled tooth. The sensitivity and specificity of each combination were calculated from the accuracy of their replies. This was repeated for five observers but with additional information from Fourier analysis. Median readings from vital teeth were higher than those from root-filled teeth for all combinations. This difference was only significant at the 95% confidence level for the 0.5 mm probe with the two lower bandwidths. The 0.125 mm fibre separation probe showed good specificity. The other two probes had better sensitivity but poor specificity. The best specificity and sensitivity was shown by the 0.5 mm probe/3.1 kHz bandwidth combination. All sensitivities and specificities increased when additional information from Fourier analysis was available, but the 0.5 mm probe/3.1 kHz combination still had the best sensitivity and specificity.