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Emerging Techniques For The Analysis of Tooth
Emerging Techniques For The Analysis of Tooth
Emerging Techniques For The Analysis of Tooth
Numerous wear indices have been proposed to quantify gross wear features
in skeletal materials, living humans and dental models. For example, the
Smith and Knight (1984) index is commonly used to quantify the severity of
enamel and dentine wear in humans.
Visual Examination & Wear Indices
Visual examination and wear indices are non-destructive and can be used
directly on teeth or models.
However, wear indices can be subjective and have low reliability and
unsuitable in dietary reconstructions in anthropological studies
Microwear assessment
Varying degrees of abrasive tooth wear are also associated with different
stages of human evolution.
Microwear assesment
microscopy settings
scoring method
There are some new methods that have been developed for tooth wear analysis, include a new wear index (Basic Erosive Wear
Examination (BEWE) Index to assess macro-wear on teeth), 3D surface profilometry (scanning confocal microscopy combined with
fractal analysis to assess microwear details), physical analytical techniques (nanohardness testing, micro-computed tomography
and nanocomputed tomography to assess physical wear characteristics at micro- and nano-levels), and chemical analytical
technique (mass spectrometry to assess surface changes in the first few atomic layers of teeth)
Basic erosive wear examination (BEWE) index
1. Teeth are divided into six sextants (anterior teeth, left and right
posterior, in both maxillary & mandibular arches).
The cumulative scores are graded into four risk levels, including no risk (i.e.
cumulative score ≤ 2); low risk (cumulative score = 3-8); medium risk
(cumulative risk = 9-13) and high risk (cumulative risk ≥ 14)
2
Example:
Sextant Erosion
Grade
1 3
1 3
2 2
3 3
4 3
5 1
6 3
Total 15
5
Basic erosive wear examination (BEWE) index
Bartlett et al. (2008) also indicated that the BEWE index would be ideal
for screening subjects for erosive tooth wear research.
Confocal microscope
Scanning confocal microscopy & fractal analysis
This method requires some training but is user friendly and is usually
more economical than most scanning electron microscopy analysis
Nanohardness testing
Each method assesses a specific aspect of tooth wear, and one size does
not fit all.