Caries is the disease that can cause tooth decay.
That lesion may have been in progress for a couple of years, and it's then difficult for us to stop or reverse the decay process. Dr. Stookey says that by using the quantitative light fluorescence technique, the dentist can detect very early carious lesions that he or she may have been unable to see with an x-ray or a clinical examination, and the dentist can quantify the changes that occur on a particular tooth or teeth. Here's how it works, according to Dr. Stookey. That beam is focused on a tooth. The loss of calcium and phosphate from the tooth will alter the pathway of the light beam, and, therefore, the reflectance properties change.