Dental Microstructural Imaging: From Conventional Radiology to In Vivo Confocal Microscopy

The innovative perspectives of the modern medical era aim to reach the highest performance and accuracy of therapeutic processes carried out for the evolution of diagnostic pathways. Digital planning and real-time diagnosis represent the hottest topics for researchers and clinicians in dentistry and oral medicine. To date, radiology is the gold-standard method for caries detection in the clinical setting. However, radiology poses a series of clinical limitations due to the use of ionizing radiation and its incapacity to recognize and detect enamel defects or early caries. In addition, radiology also presents issues surrounding its responsiveness to remineralizing agents and the microscopic gaps between the tooth and restorative treatments. To date, the evaluation of these conditions is only permitted ex vivo, with common methods in clinical practice not being applicable for establishing the actual condition of every case in every single patient. This work aims to develop state-of-the-art knowledge on conventional and unconventional innovative dental imaging techniques, focusing on those that not only promise to pursue the early and less invasive detection of dental disorders but also those that could be applied in clinical practice, with a particular interest in real-time in vivo confocal microscopy.