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Michelson Diagnostics Ltd has delivered a VivoSight Multi-Beam OCT scanner to Kings College London Dental Institute for a project that promises to solve one of the biggest problems of modern dentistry; how to determine when a dental implant is at risk of failure.  By using VivoSight to provide real time, high resolution in vivo images of hard and soft tissue, researchers hope to quickly identify prompt, non-invasive treatment protocols versus expensive, stressful and invasive procedures.

When a dental implant starts to fail, the soft tissue around it becomes infected and changes character, explained Professor Tim Watson, who is leading the project. Dentists need a method of imaging these changes and detecting them before they have become irreversible, but X-ray and cone-beam CT images do not show sufficient detail. Our project aims to solve this by combining the ability of Multi-Beam Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to image soft tissue microstructure, with the ability of vascular micro-endoscopy to image blood vessels.

The failure of dental implants is a rapidly growing and very expensive oral healthcare problem. Tens of thousands of implants are placed annually, but many fail after only a few years, when an infection develops at the surface and then penetrates between the gum and titanium implant materials. If not picked up in time and promptly treated, the infection can damage the implant-bone interface, resulting in loosening and ultimately loss of the implant, with accompanying pain and distress to the patient. Repair and replacement costs can run to £thousands.

The one-year project aims to prove that non-invasive image data can be captured in-vivo, detecting infected tissues, so that a practical instrument can be developed and marketed. The £100k project is funded from the £10.5M awarded to King's College London as one of four Centres of Excellence in Medical Engineering by Wellcome Trust and EPSRC. The funding will help to develop integrated teams of clinicians, biomedical scientists and world-class engineers with the capacity to invent high-tech solutions to medical challenges, potentially improving thousands of patients lives. Professor Reza Razavi, Head of Imaging Sciences at King's and the new Centre said: Our Medical Engineering Centre will break down the barriers between engineering, the physical sciences, and biology and medicine. We will conduct world-class clinical trials to show the benefit of new discoveries in imaging technology that the centre will produce. I see patients in my clinic every day, so I have a very clear understanding of what they need to make their lives better. Medical imaging has the capacity to give my patients access to new tools for earlier and more precise diagnoses of cancer and heart disease, better targeted therapies, less invasive surgery, and improved techniques for rebuilding tissue after surgery.