Thermographic assessment of vital and non-vital anterior teeth: A comparative study

Aim: Quantify and compare the temperature of vital and non-vital anterior teeth by using infrared thermography. Methodology: The study group was composed by 28 participants and the control group by 30 participants, overall 126 maxillary anterior teeth were assessed. To measure the teeth temperature it was used the thermal camera FLIR E60. The patients were kept in an environment with constant temperature and humidity for 15 min for acclimatization. The teeth were dried using compressed air and buccal retractors were used in all patients during the thermographic recordings. For each variable Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests were performed to evaluate its distribution, while the U-Mann Whitney was run to test the hypothesis under study. Results: Teeth with non-surgical endodontic treatment showed to be colder, than vital teeth and teeth suspected to be in a necrotic pulpal state, statistically significant (p < 0.05). It was also verified that the thermal asymmetry in vital non-corresponding teeth was similar to the thermal asymmetry in corresponding vital teeth (p > 0.05). Furthermore, these two groups of vital teeth showed statistically significant differences when compared with the thermal asymmetry between a non-vital tooth and a vital one (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The results of this study suggest anterior vital and non-vital teeth may present different temperatures when assessed with infrared thermography.