摘要 |
The invention includes a noninvasive method for characterizing dental pulpal vitality of a tooth including the steps of irradiating the tooth with at least partially coherent light, and speckle imaging to provide quantitative feedback to an end user of pulpal blood flow in the tooth, and the tangible records made by such a method. The invention also includes an apparatus for noninvasively characterizing dental pulpal vitality of a tooth comprising a source of at least partially coherent light for irradiating the tooth characterized by a speckle pattern, optics for directing the at least partially coherent light onto the tooth, including a corresponding pulpal cavity within the tooth, a detector for detecting transmission of the at least partially coherent light through the tooth, and a processor coupled to the detector speckle imaging to provide a quantitative feedback of pulpal blood flow in the tooth.
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