What? A Laser to Detect Decay?

Now there is a laser than can detect decay hidden beneath the surface of the teeth so that the dentist can detect the decay and a much earlier stage and treat it more conservatively. The truth of the matter is that dentistry’s old dental pick, or explorer, detects only about 40% of the decay in the deep grooves of teeth. As teeth have become harder though the years with the event of fluorides in water and toothpaste, the middle portion of tooth, or dentin, has remained basically the same. What looks like a small groove to us is like a cavern to bacteria. Some of these grooves are smaller than what the old explorers can penetrate into.
The laser has a tip of about 0.2 mm. When the laser light finds decay, the decay beneath starts to fluoresce. The amount of fluoresced light reflected back correlates to the amount of decay present with an accuracy of over 95%!
The BIG advantage of this technology is that decay can be found at the earliest moment. At that time the decay can be treated fast, easy, and in a painless manner. Advanced dentist now use tooth color filling to invisibly restore these, often using using a different laser ( See Waterlase laser ).