Dental radiology is the core diagnostic modality of veterinary dentistry. Dental radiographs assist in detecting hidden painful pathology, estimating the severity of dental conditions, assessing treatment options, providing intraoperative guidance, and also serve to monitor success of prior treatments.

Dental X-rays (radiographs) are images of your teeth that your dentist uses to evaluate your oral health. These X-rays are used with low levels of radiation to capture images of the interior of your teeth and gums. This can help your dentist to identify problems, like cavities, tooth decay, and impacted teeth.

It’s basically a three-dimensional radiograph, a “3D x-ray”. CBCT stands for “Cone Beam Computed Tomography”. You may have heard of a medical “CAT scan”; this is a similar technology, but using a cone-shaped beam allows us to get the information we need with significantly less radiation.

City imaging and clinical lab is pleased to offer India's first CONE BEAM COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY (CBCT) to patients, dentists, maxillofacial surgeons and health care professionals. CBCT has in a few years changed the practice of dental and maxillofacial surgery the world over. High definition, three dimensional digital imaging is now easily available to referring doctors using the latest state-ofthe-art i-CAT CBCT with large field of view from Imaging Sciences, USA. The scan is performed with the patient sitting very comfortably in a chair during the CT scan.

The i-CAT Cone Beam CT uses an amorphous silicon flat panel detector and cone beam technology to get volumetric images with vastly information gives the treating doctor more thorough structural knowledge which enables highly accurate diagnosis and treatment planning and can help create more predictable outcomes. Vastly lower radiation dose (20-100 times) means that the i-CAT CBCT scan can be done safely without any undue concern for radiation side-effects.

Dentists will prescribe a CBCT scan for a number of reasons. Sometimes we want to see a 3D image prior to surgery or implant placement for your safety. Other times we need to see the jaw joints, sinuses, or some unusual anatomy.

There are a number of different scans, but a typical one lasts just under 9 seconds. You will have to remove any facial jewelry, hearing aids, and neck chains, and wait for a dentist to review that the scan has all the information we need, so if you are from an outside clinic, you will be in our clinic about twenty minutes.

That depends on what your dentist has requested. Sometimes they will have us burn a copy on disk and send it back with you; other times they will have us mail a disc or send it to them digitally through secure upload transfer. On occasion we will also send the information to a specialist called an Oral & Maxillofacial Radiologist for review.

Although relatively low, Dental CBCT scans cause some exposure to radiation; the amount of exposure is approximately the same as taking a five-hour international plane flight. Due to radiation exposure, scans are not generally recommended for pregnant women and should be used cautiously in the pre-orthodontic evaluation of children.

During the scan, a motorized arm rotates 360-degrees around your head while capturing multiple images from different angles that are then reconstructed to create a single 3-D image.

The interpretation of a Dental CBCT scan may be done by your dentist, dental specialist or radiologist.

Cone Beam Computed Tomography is a relatively new three-dimensional imaging technology, which has been specifically developed for imaging of the teeth and jaws. The aim of this paper is to acquaint the dental team with various forms of this technology and its potential applications. An understanding of the underlying principles will allow the users of this technology to tailor the imaging protocol to the patient's individual needs to achieve appropriate imaging at the lowest radiation dose.