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DIGITAL RADIOGRAPHY

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  • 02/01/2012 at 4:58 pm #10242
    drmithila
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    Digital radiography offers many advantages over the use of x-ray film in pediatric and adolescent dentistry. The author has had the pleasure of utilizing digital radiography for more than 10 years. There are many benefits of this technology, including the ability to have high-quality radiographs, being more efficient, and providing cost savings by using digital radiography over x-ray film. This article will discuss the advantages of digital radiography in working with children and adolescents, which will include improved diagnostic ability, radiography of traumatic injuries, hospital patients, sending radiographs via the Internet to insurance companies and other dentists, patient safety, cost savings, and patient/parent education. Digital radiography has been in use for more than 25 years. During this time, researchers have improved the quality of the radiographic images. The author will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using digital radiography for children and teens. The author’s discussion of digital radiography in this article will be limited to intraoral radiographs.

    Digital radiography is not an experimental modality. The technology is reliable and versatile, which expands the diagnostic and image-sharing possibilities of radiography in dentistry. The utilization of brightness and contrast, task-specific image processing, and sensor-independent archiving are advantages that digital radiography has over conventional film-based imaging.1 Here is a list of some of the uses/advantages of intraoral digital radiography for children and adolescents:

    1. Detection of caries
    2. Detection of periodontal disease
    3. Diagnosis of other pathological conditions
    4. Traumatic injuries
    5. Radiographs of disabled children and adolescents
    6. Developmental and genetic conditions
    7. Endodontics
    8. Patient and parent education
    9. Sending radiographs
    10. Saving time/money
    11. Offering “high-tech” dentistry for your patients.2
            

    02/01/2012 at 4:58 pm #15022
    drmithila
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     ADVANTAGES OF DIGITAL RADIOGRAPHY 

    There are many advantages of digital radiographs. Digital radiography allows the dental team to take quality radiographs with ease and efficiency. No chemicals or waiting for x-ray film processing makes the time that the patient needs to be in the dental chair much less. This is especially important for the young or disabled patient.4 The size and shape of the sensor is important for the comfort for the patient. One digital x-ray company has cut the corners off of the sensor design (DEXIS) which aids in the comfort of the patient.

    Quality Control and Image Enhancement 
    Another advantage is the quality of radiographs attainable. It is very frustrating and often embarrassing to receive poor quality radiographs from colleagues. The radiographic film was underdeveloped and the resulting poor quality is neither readable nor of archival quality. Imagine what our dental team felt about the quality of the dentistry from the dental office that sent us these x-rays. On the other hand, with the software from some digital radiography companies, the dental team can receive e-mailed radiographs and place them into patients’ digital radiographic records (Figures 6a and 6b).

    Figure 6a. Underdeveloped x-ray film. Figure 6b. Quality control with digital x-rays.

    Yet another advantage of digital radiography is the ability to enhance the radiographic view by enlarging, brightness control, and improvement of the contrast. This makes the digital radiograph more diagnostic to detect fractures, caries, periodontal conditions, tumors, and cysts.5

            

    02/01/2012 at 5:00 pm #15024
    drmithila
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     General Anesthesia

    One of the advantages in using digital radiography for patients that are treated while under general anesthesia is the rapidity in taking the radiograph and in the saving of time by determining immediately the quality of the radiograph. This allows the progression of treatment to be accelerated, thus preventing the prolonged time that the patient needs to be under general anesthesia (Figure 8). Also, due to the software that accompanies the digital radiograph program, the radiographs are placed into the sequence previously set up by the dentist.

    Save Time and Money 
    With digital radiography, you will not need to purchase film mounts and take the time required to mount the processed radiographs. You will also save money on the film processor and chemicals that would have been needed to develop traditional x-ray film. The author has been able to train his dental team to take full-mouth digital radiographs in less than 10 minutes without the use of chemicals and film mounts. This saves both time and money. In more than 10 years of using the digital sensors in our multidentist practice, we have only had to replace one sensor. If you are thinking about getting a wireless sensor, you must consider the possibility of the sensor being lost or ruined by accidently leaving it in a dental gown and going through the washing machine—ouch! Some of the digital radiography companies have multiple sizes of sensors; I suggest using the "keep it simple" approach. Another concern you might have is the learning curve in switching from conventional to digital radiography. It took our team of dentists, hygienists, and assistants less than 2 hours to get used to the Rinn type holders for the sensor. There are other holders for the sensor that are even more versatile

            

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