Dental caries diagnostic probe

2025: Product Announcement

Sechenov University has created a medical device for the accurate diagnosis of carious dentin during dental intervention. The device allows doctors to distinguish between types of affected tooth tissue that cannot be visually determined. The university told about this technology at the end of November 2025.

The development is designed to differentiate the types of carious dentin directly during treatment. The device helps dentists in situations where the specialist poorly distinguishes the affected tissues from healthy ones.

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Фото: Freepik

With caries therapy, doctors regularly face the difficulty of determining the boundaries of the lesion. Visual inspection or microscope use does not reliably distinguish between caries-infected dentin and damaged but viable dentin. The infected tissue must be removed, while the preserved tissue must be left. The use of special dyes partially solves the problem, but increases the duration of the procedure and requires additional manipulations.

The new development is devoid of these shortcomings. The device works non-invasively, safe for the patient and functions in real time. A thin optical probe is applied to the tooth surface, records a fluorescent signal, and transmits the information to a computer. Using a machine learning model, the system instantly determines the type of tissue.

The algorithm was trained on spectra derived from more than 100 teeth removed. The diagnosis was subsequently confirmed by histological examination. This provided high accuracy in determining the type of dentin.

Elena Nikonova, a junior researcher at the Laboratory of Clinical Biophotonics at Sechenov University, noted that the development is a qualitatively new approach to clinical decision-making. According to Elena Nikonova, the device helps the doctor get objective data right during the preparation of the carious cavity. The junior researcher stressed that this reduces the risk of excessive removal of healthy tissues and reduces the likelihood of complications, including pulpitis and the need for endodontic treatment.^[1]

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