Depolarization-Based Multimodal Optical Imaging of Carious Lesions.

A comprehensive image catalog from an in vitro investigation of teeth with occlusal carious lesions is provided. The aim was to visualize carious lesions using various imaging techniques in order to present different stages of caries progression and to provide reference data for the development and validation of polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT) as a non-ionizing diagnostic method for dental caries. The study covers a variety of approaches, bridging the gap from basic histopathological analysis of thin sections to future optical imaging of occlusal carious lesions in vivo. All measurements were performed to support the interpretation and validation of PS-OCT imaging based on the degree of polarization (DOP).