Design considerations for ease of access and maneuverability of OCT imaging platforms in the oral cavity

With the advent of instruments incorporating elements of confocal microscopy and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), optical technologies are steadily gaining usage in a variety of biomedical applications. They offer tissue visualization both at the superficial level and in depth, they operate using non-ionizing radiation at a relatively low cost, and the procedures are easily tolerated by patients. One area of growth for optical imaging is in the oral cavity, which has excellent optical accessibility both for dental tissue and oral mucosa. The need to image features accurately (both as part of oral mapping and as part of investigating the underlying tooth structure) requires producing 3-D volumes with sufficiently good lateral and vertical resolution to allow identification of features of interest. Although a few types of intraoral optical scanners are already successfully commercialized for surface mapping, the examination of optical design considerations that are particular to scanned beam imaging in the oral cavity does highlight particular challenges of interest to both clinicians and optical engineers engaged in designing the next generation of optical instruments.