3D radiography and dental imaging

With recent technological advancements it seems like all the media we view these days is going 3D—3D cinema, 3D TV and now 3D comes to the dental surgery. While the debate still rages over whether 3D in the entertainment industry is just a passing fad or is here to stay, in dentistry it’s clear that 3D radiography has definite benefits for a number of procedures and will become more and more significant in the future.

Not long ago, if you needed a 3D image of the mouth the patient was sent to the nearest hospital with a CT (computerised tomography) scanner. However, the CT scanners used in hospitals are more tuned to scanning soft tissue, heart, lungs, brain, etc. and are not so good for scanning the harder tissues we deal with in dentistry, i.e. teeth and bones. The hospital CT scanners also produce relatively high radiation doses for the patient.