Dental News - New research uses squid ink to check for periodontal disease

Dental Tribune International

Mon. 18. September 2017

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SAN DIEGO, USA: An engineer-led team has developed a new dental imaging method to examine the health of patients’ gingivae. A mixture of squid ink, water and cornstarch is applied to the gingivae and examined using light and ultrasound. The team from the University of California, San Diego believe the new method could be less invasive, more comprehensive and more accurate than anything else available today.

“The last time I was at the dentist, I realized that the tools that are currently being used to image teeth and gums could use significant updating,” said Dr. Jesse Jokerst, assistant professor at the Department of NanoEngineering at UC San Diego and senior author of the study.

The usual way of checking pocket depth for any signs of periodontal disease can be invasive and uncomfortable for some patients and measurements can vary greatly between dentists. “Using the periodontal probe is like examining a dark room with just a flashlight and you can only see one area at a time. With our method, it’s like flipping on all the light switches so you can see the entire room all at once,” said Jokerst.

For the new method, the mouth is first rinsed with a paste made of commercially available food-grade squid ink, water and cornstarch. The rinse serves as a contrast agent for an imaging technique called photoacoustic ultrasound. This involves shining a light signal, usually a short laser pulse, on to a sample, which heats up and expands, generating an acoustic signal that researchers can then analyze.

Squid ink naturally contains melanin nanoparticles, which absorb light, and during the oral rinse, these are trapped in the pockets between the teeth and gingivae. When lit with a laser, the paste heats and swells, creating pressure in the pockets that is detected with ultrasound. This is what enables researchers to create a full map of the pocket depth around each tooth.

According to the researchers, future work will look to minimize the salty and bitter taste of the squid ink and replace the laser lights with inexpensive, more portable light systems, like LEDs, with the ultimate goal of creating a mouthpiece that uses the technology to measure periodontal health.

The study, titled “Photoacoustic imaging for noninvasive periodontal probing depth measurements,” was published on Sept. 7 online in the Journal of Dental Research ahead of print.