Pulse oximeter for diagnosis of dental pulp pathology
First Claim
1. Apparatus for detecting vitality of a tooth and measuring variables related to oxygenation and blood flow in said tooth comprising:
- a sensor having a housing shaped for placement on said tooth, said housing including a first light emitting diode for emitting light in a red section of the spectrum, a second light emitting diode for emitting light in an infrared section of the spectrum and a third light emitting diode for emitting light in a green section of the spectrum and a photosensitive diode means for receiving light scattered from the emitted light and producing a light reception signal indicative of the intensity levels of said scattered light; and
processing means, receiving said light reception signal, for processing said light reception signal and outputting pulp oxygenation level information about said tooth as well as determining pulsatile flood flow from said light reception signal, said information being based on dynamic intensity levels associated with said scattered light.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A non-invasive device which determines the pulp oxygenation level of a tooth and the vitality of a tooth using multiple-wavelength optical plethysmography. A sensor is shaped to be mounted on a tooth and circuitry for processing a signal from the sensor and supplied from a photosenstive diode is used. The photosensitive diode in the sensor detects light scattered from the tooth which was emitted from red, green, and infrared LEDs. An electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor is provided so as to produce improved detection reliability by synchronous averaging using the occurrence of the R-wave of the ECG as a time marker. Using this approach, a threshold-of-detection criterion can be established based on an average computed over a period to achieve a desired signal-to-noise ratio.
155 Citations
18 Claims
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1. Apparatus for detecting vitality of a tooth and measuring variables related to oxygenation and blood flow in said tooth comprising:
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a sensor having a housing shaped for placement on said tooth, said housing including a first light emitting diode for emitting light in a red section of the spectrum, a second light emitting diode for emitting light in an infrared section of the spectrum and a third light emitting diode for emitting light in a green section of the spectrum and a photosensitive diode means for receiving light scattered from the emitted light and producing a light reception signal indicative of the intensity levels of said scattered light; and processing means, receiving said light reception signal, for processing said light reception signal and outputting pulp oxygenation level information about said tooth as well as determining pulsatile flood flow from said light reception signal, said information being based on dynamic intensity levels associated with said scattered light. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. Apparatus for detecting vitality of a tooth and measuring variables related to oxygenation and blood flow in said tooth comprising:
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a sensor having a housing shaped for placement on said tooth, said housing including a first light emitting diode for emitting light in a red section of the spectrum, a second light emitting diode for emitting light in an infrared section of the spectrum and a third light emitting diode for emitting light in a green section of the spectrum and a photosensitive diode means for receiving light scattered from the emitted light and producing a light reception signal indicative of the intensity levels of said scattered light; an electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor means for detecting ECG information and displaying said ECG information and said light reception signal on a common time-base with said light reception signal; and processing means, receiving said light reception signal and said ECG information, for processing said light reception signal as a function of and synchronized with said ECG information to output pulp oxygenation level information of said tooth, and to determine pulsatile blood flow to determine tooth vitality, said information being based on dynamic intensity levels associated with said scattered light. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14)
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15. A method for measuring a pulp oxygenation level of a tooth and for determining vitality of said tooth, comprising for steps of:
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emitting light to said tooth; sensing light scattered by said tooth; separating a signal indicative of the sensed light into its component parts; dividing said component parts of said signal each into an AC and a DC signal; processing said AC and DC signals to produce information that indicates pulp oxygenation level and vitality of said tooth; and displaying said pulp oxygenation level on a bar graph indicator and said vitality via a pulse indicator. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18)
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Specification