Quantum Dental Technologies (QDT), a Toronto-based medical device company, became the first Canadian business to win the National Instruments (NI) Graphical System Design Achievement Award in the Medical Device Design and Development category. QDT was the only Canadian company to win an award at the 16th Annual NIWeek 2010 conference and exhibition held in Austin, TX, on Aug 3-5. QDT developed The Canary System, a non-invasive, accurate, repeatable, and highly sensitive approach to the detection, monitoring, and treatment of early tooth decay.
The National Instruments Graphical System Design Achievement Awards is a technical application contest, showcasing the most cutting-edge projects based on NI software and hardware. This year, NI received 108 submissions from authors in more than 20 countries.
The Medical Device Design and Development category showcases the diverse and innovative ways that engineers and scientists have designed, prototyped, and deployed PC-based or portable technologies for medical devices using graphical system design tools combined with flexible, off-the-shelf, embedded hardware.
QDT’s submission focused on the use of National Instruments LabVIEW 2009 software to develop The Canary System’s easy-to-use software interface. The company also used AutoCAD 2008 for the hardware design and KaleidaGraph for data plotting.
The interface enables The Canary System to generate custom reports for both the patient and oral healthcare provider. The reports are displayed on an interactive, touch-screen monitor for immediate chair side review with patients. Patient reports include an odontogram, incorporating Canary numbers and color-coding to illustrate the severity of tooth decay for examined teeth.
Red, yellow and green colors are used to demonstrate which areas need attention. The patient report also includes the recommendations for home and office treatment, and timing of the next visit. The dental report contains images of the surfaces examined along with the Canary numbers. During the examination, The Canary System’s interface also verbally communicates the Canary numbers, which helps engage the patients into the scanning routine. All of the information is stored on the system, or on the Canary Cloud for offices with wireless Internet access. No other tooth decay detection device on the market is capable of generating reports for dental staff and patients.
The Canary System is the first and only complete dental program to integrate the full spectrum of caries (tooth decay) management – from detection to treatment. It employs a novel method of measuring the heat (Photo-Thermal Radiometry or PTR) and reflected laser light (luminescence or LUM) from tooth surfaces. It centers on a unique, painless, sensitive and non-invasive tooth decay detection device, based on extensive research, including over 40 published research papers and abstracts in peer-reviewed dental and clinical journals.
Quantum Dental Technologies
www.thecanarysystem.com
National Instruments
www.ni.com
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