A Method for Detection of Blood Flow in the Dental Pulp

¹ Department of Physiology, Baylor University College of Dentistry, Dallas, Texas

A very sensitive technique has been developed for the study of blood flow in the intact tooth in situ. The method involves little or no trauma to the tooth, because it consisted simply of clamping a photoconductive pickup assembly on the tooth. The mechanism involved appeared to be primarily one of varying optical density that resulted from blood flow surges within the pulp cavity. It was observed that both ipsilateral carotid artery block and injection of normal saline into the artery caused an over-all decrease in optical density and that the injection of cardio-green dye caused an increase in the optical density. These findings indicated that cardioballistics were not a major cause of the recorded pulsations.