Ultrasonic technology was first used in dentistry in the 1950s. With the advent of high-speed drilling RIGS, in the early 1960s, the technology was refocused on ultrasound expansion or power retractions, which revolutionized mechanical innovation. Dentistry currently USES ultrasonic dental supplies, power scaling, toothbrush, and root canal preparation. Researchers are looking for new ways to extend the technology. Ultrasound may be in the development of non-invasive periodontal disease assessment tool has great potential, it can provide some clinical features of real-time information, such as pocket depth, attachment level, tissue thickness, histological changes, calculus, bone morphology, and the assessment of fracture and tooth structure.
Manual detection and ultrasound
The current standard for measuring periodontal disease activity is artificial exploration to determine the level of clinical attachment (CAL). Unfortunately, in the case of retrospective attachment loss of more than 2 mm or destructive periodontal disease, bone loss must occur in radiological diagnosis before reliable diagnosis is performed. In addition, the inherent in artificial detection accuracy, such as the examiner pressure change, place, Angle and visual interpretation and records, and the difference of health probe tip diameter and the individual organizations, helps tissue penetration and periodontal evaluation.
Ultrasonography is a reliable method of periodontal evaluation. The possibility of improving reproducibility may mean that ultrasonic detection is valuable as a diagnostic tool. 6-8. Ultrasonography has great potential in accurately assessing the state of periodontal disease.
The development of ultrasound technology may produce a new generation of periodontal probes, which will produce more diagnostic information, eliminate the operator's variability, and produce real-time non-invasive evaluation methods. Ultrasonic periodontal exploration has the ability to detect tissue decomposition and other histological information, such as tissue thickness and inflammation. Ultrasonic examination of periodontal disease may result in less error information and help to better understand the pathogenesis of the disease, thus leading to earlier diagnosis and intervention.
The evolution of ultrasonic periodontal probe
The main parts of ultrasonic dental equipments are display/output devices; Responsible for transmitting and receiving acoustic sensors; And the CPU. Early dental ultrasound devices were bulky and had no resemblance to traditional periodontal probes. The original research was conducted on the mandibular body and plastic test block, to simulate data produced by the periodontal pocket, these data are used to develop computer software algorithm framework, and detect the tip geometry. The biggest challenge is to convert ultrasonic echo into understandable dental language. In other words, the ultrasonic wave mode must be converted to digital interpretation, which represents a typical probe depth measurement for dental professionals.
The raw data is difficult to explain due to the change of signal strength and noise. In order to obtain the depth data of the periodontal bag from ultrasonic echo, there are five individuals in the ultrasonic signal analysis to perform visual inspection on each probe point. These observers determined a pocket depth in a place where the echo was no longer prominent. This transfer point corresponds to the level of the connective tissue attached to the bone. At this point, the connective tissue strongly reduces the echo from the surface of the tooth, so that the characteristic that is outside this depth no longer has a significant waveform peak. Several researchers have determined how different people recognize the depth of the ultrasound's pocket, and their performance is compared to the fully automated feature recognition software algorithm. In practice, the ultrasonic echo will be computerized analysis of the artificial intelligence algorithm, the algorithm automatically explain echo signal, convert them into detecting depth, and immediately on the dental chart shows that the numerical reading.
