Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy for the Evaluation of Mid-Palatal Suture Maturation After Expansion
Date of Award
Spring 2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Biomedical Engineering
First Advisor
Yu, Bing
Second Advisor
Liu, Dawei
Third Advisor
Olson, Lars
Abstract
Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) is a technique for characterizing the optical properties of biological tissues and has been extensively studied for diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of various diseases. This thesis investigates the potential use of DRS for the evaluation of mid-palatal suture maturation after expansion. The most common evaluation technique for palatal expansion is Computed Tomography (CT). The major issue with CT is that during serial radiological scanning, patients are repeatedly exposed to ionizing radiation. DRS is a non-invasive, non-ionizing method which can be used to quantify the tissue optical properties in the visible wavelength in vivo. This study demonstrates that a fiber-optic-based DRS system could be used to quantify the total hemoglobin content and scattering coefficient in the simulated dental tissue, showing its potential to be used to represent the maturation of mid-palatal suture.