On the use of dental microwear texture analysis to determine etiology and assess wear of dental tissues for clinical evaluation.

Here we present and synthesize some recent collaborative efforts in our laboratories to establish protocols for using dental microwear texture analysis, originally developed to reconstruct diets of fossil mammals, to aid in clinical assessment of dental patients today. The idea is to propose a method whereby polyvinylsiloxane impressions, as used in many dental practices, can be combined with surface texture analysis for a rapid, non-invasive, and inexpensive approach to detect and monitor progression of tooth wear at fine scales over short durations and help determine causal agents of dental tissue loss. We employed both in vitro experimentation and in vivo analysis for abrasion and erosion of enamel and dentin surfaces. Three-dimensional point clouds of impression surfaces were generated using a scanning confocal profiler and analyzed using both standard ISO and scale-sensitive fractal analysis approaches. Our results indicate that texture attributes distinguish sound, abraded, and eroded surfaces. Furthermore, microwear textures can parse erosive tooth wear by causal pH level and duration of exposure. These and other related studies indicate that dental microwear texture analysis holds potential for determining etiology of pathological tooth wear, and for clinical assessment and monitoring of dental patients at risk for excessive dental tissue loss at fine scales over short intervals.