Objective The purpose of this study was to determine the feasibility of image‐guided laser ablation of demineralization from tooth occlusal surfaces using coaxial near‐infrared (NIR) and CO 2 lasers. Materials and Methods A CO 2 laser operating at a wavelength of 9.3‐μm was combined with a thulium‐doped fiber laser operating at 1880‐nm for the selective removal of simulated occlusal caries lesions from 10 tooth samples. Serial NIR reflectance images at 1880‐nm were used to guide the CO 2 laser for image‐guided laser ablation. Polarization‐sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS‐OCT) was used to assess the initial depth of the lesions before removal and assess the volume of sound and demineralized tissue removed by the CO 2 laser. Results PS‐OCT scans indicated that roughly ∼99% of the lesion was removed by image‐guided laser ablation. A mean volume of 0.191‐mm 3 or 11.9‐μm/voxel of excess enamel was removed during lesion removal. Conclusion A co‐aligned NIR/CO 2 laser scanning system has great potential for the highly selective removal of dental decay (demineralization). Lasers Surg. Med. 51:176–184, 2019.
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Chan et al. (2018) studied this question.