Dental imaging


A real head turner


Introduction


In recent times, technology has taken a huge leap forward, not least in the field of dental imaging. The following article is a light-hearted look at some issues around cross-sectional dental imaging with a few serious comments and warnings for the uninformed. General dental practitioners are becoming increasingly involved in implant planning, placement and in the restorative phase of this newer treatment modality.


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right eyed and bushy tailed, we headed off to university. For some this is a fond, but distant memory.


Remember struggling with the vagaries of anatomy? Then later, trying to apply it when looking at X-rays, oops... I meant radiographs – “X-rays being invisible”, I was often reminded. What memories of the X-ray


department? Didn’t the staff have strange job titles such as radiographer, radiologist and dark room technician? The latter was the poor soul condemned to darkness for much of their working day – what was all that about? Dad said to study an “ology”,


so maybe that made radiology a useful topic – so we got those radiology tomes out, laid them on our chests in the park on a sunny afternoon in May just


16 Ireland’s Dental magazine


before the exams and allowed osmosis to take effect. Spotting caries was not rocket science if you could sort out the pesky “cervical burnout” lesion! Wade through the black and


white/gray stuff for exam pur- poses and get stuck into real dentistry – this perhaps sums up most people’s experience of radiology at undergraduate level, unless like this author you were a bit of an imaging geek. But what if all of that radiol- ogy speak actually had a practical use? I soon became aware, after graduation in den- tistry, that many clinical decisions centre on a sound understanding of radiological anatomy and the ability to recognise the “abnormal”. How to ward off that nagging thought that occurs just as you place your head on the pillow: “What exactly was that radi-


ographic appearance I noted today?” This is the ongoing chal- lenge. The spectre of missing a sinister lesion can sometimes weigh heavily. Should I refer on for an opinion or will I look silly? The steep learning curve tails


off and the bump and grind of daily practice can begin to lull


This offers the opportunity


for some skilled and daring souls in our profession to move out of their long-established comfort zone of routine dentistry into a brand new world of surgical “Meccano”. Remembering dad’s advice, implantology represents a good


Driven by the promise of restored function and eternal youth, implantology makes its entrance


one into a state of professional stupor. Then along comes a new “ology”. Driven by the endless makeover programmes and the promise of restored function and eternal youth, implantology makes its entrance on to the dental high street.


“ology” to get involved in. Besides, there are some flashy new shiny toys which fit easily with the dental profession as we are so used to working in con- fined spaces and have excellent manual dexterity. In order to avoid that nasty letter from a lawyer should the


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