IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2019 Apr;66(4):1026-1033. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2018.2866273. Epub 2018 Aug 20.
In dentistry, dentists perform many treatments with a few visually magnified information. About deep area of root canals, it commonly relies on exploration carried out with the fingers of the dentist, because the root canal entrance is very small to be observed. In clinical practice, the intraoral camera and endoscopic systems are separate devices, and there are no sensors to capture both pictures of the whole tooth and those inside the root canal. Objective of this research is to combine the intraoral camera and endoscopic system facilitating to use clinical practice.
We propose an endoscopic system based on the thin image fiber, SOPROLIFE intraoral camera as an image sensor, and a new adaptor to connect the two parts. We observed resolution charts with 50, 25, 10, and 5 line pairs (LP)/mm patterns. The acquired images are processed to both remove fixed-pattern noise using robust principal component analysis and enhance contrast.
The acquired images containing all LP/mm patterns were clear and showed higher contrast after processing. Visibility of the processed images is 1.7, 1.6, 2.2, and 1.9 times higher than that of the raw images for 50, 25, 10, and 5 LP/mm patterns, respectively.
Our fabricated endoscopic system based on the SOPROLIFE intraoral camera could observe 50, 25, 10, and 5 LP/mm patterns. After image processing, the noise was reduced, and high-contrast images were obtained.
This system can be considered as a further step toward facilitating noninvasive and contactless systems in clinical practice.
在牙科中，牙医进行许多治疗时都依赖于少量放大的视觉信息。由于根管入口非常小，难以观察，因此关于根管的深部区域，通常依赖牙医用手指进行探查。在临床实践中，口腔内相机和内窥镜系统是分开的设备，没有传感器可以同时捕捉整个牙齿和根管内部的图像。本研究的目的是结合口腔内相机和内窥镜系统，便于临床应用。
我们提出了一种基于细图像纤维的内窥镜系统，SOPROLIFE 口腔内相机作为图像传感器，以及一种新的适配器来连接两部分。我们观察了具有 50、25、10 和 5 线对（LP）/mm 图案的分辨率图表。采集的图像经过处理，使用稳健主成分分析去除固定模式噪声并增强对比度。
包含所有 LP/mm 图案的采集图像清晰，处理后对比度更高。处理后的图像的可视性分别比原始图像高 1.7、1.6、2.2 和 1.9 倍，用于 50、25、10 和 5 LP/mm 图案。
我们基于 SOPROLIFE 口腔内相机制造的内窥镜系统可以观察到 50、25、10 和 5 LP/mm 图案。经过图像处理，降低了噪声，获得了高对比度的图像。
该系统可以被视为在临床实践中促进非侵入性和非接触式系统的进一步步骤。
