Applications for NewTom CBCT Technology

AFP Imaging: The Future of 3D Radiography

Dental Care | Implants | Orthodontics | ENT

Standard of Dental Care
The American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology (AAOMR) recommends the use of CBCT imaging in many cases involving evaluation of periodontal, implant, and oral/maxillo-facial surgery patients. This is an important step toward making CBCT the standard of care in these dental specialties. CBCT imaging is also rapidly becoming the standard of care for orthodontists as well.

In addition to quality of treatment issues, there are also legal concerns to consider. In problem cases, dental professionals who have not utilized the most advanced diagnostic tools in diagnosis and treatment planning may be seen as practicing below the standard of care and can run a much greater risk of legal liability than those who have taken advantage of CBCT technology in case preparation.

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Implant Planning/Diagnosis
Prior to the advent of CBCT scanning, implant specialists had to rely on calibrated two-dimensional images, which often had distortion and magnification errors that made them highly inaccurate. With the increasing acceptance of dental implants as a treatment modality, there came increasing demand for new and more accurate diagnostic and treatment planning technologies.

When CBCT imaging became a reality for dental applications, it was immediately recognized as one of the most effective tools available to the implantologist. Three-dimensional CBCT images can be used to evaluate implant sites and identify potential pathologies and structural abnormalities with unprecedented accuracy. And with the advent of guided implant placement based on CBCT imaging, the implant specialist can approach each case with the confidence that comes from knowing that the best available image data and technology has been used to ensure success. CBCT images are also a very effective communications tool between specialists and dental team members.

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Orthodontics
Because NewTom CBCT scan images eliminate the linear projective transformation errors, including distortion and magnification, that plague 2D imaging, they’ve become the method of choice for orthodontic diagnosis and treatment planning. In fact, so effective are CBCT images at reconstructing with great accuracy the maxillo-facial structure of orthodontic patients that they have virtually eliminated the need for several steps in the conventional orthodontic treatment process.

Once the image data has been captured, it can be used to create three-dimensional "virtual models" that enable the orthodontist to visualize electronically without having to take impressions and wax bites. This saves time for the dental professional and eliminates the need for the unpleasant and often messy practice of creating plaster models.

In addition, it is now possible for the orthodontist to locate impacted molars and cuspids and to measure the dimensions of the alveolar bone with great accuracy. And the technology makes it possible to assess with a high degree of confidence the amount of resorption of adjacent teeth that has occurred and to precisely determine the potential for orthodontic tooth movement.

CBCT imaging means more accurate and economical record-keeping for the orthodontist. The typical orthodontic post-treatment process used to mean double-pouring the model from which the patient's retainer was made and preserving it as a final study model, taking lateral head and panoramic x-rays, and photographing the patient. With CBCT, these steps are unnecessary. All that’s required is to take a final cone beam scan and take photographs. This represents important time, space, and money savings for the orthodontic practice.

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ENT/Sleep Studies
One of the fastest-growing areas for CBCT scanning technology is among ENT physicians and surgeons. CBCT has, in an important sense, become the standard of care for this branch of medicine. Because they provide accuracy far superior to conventional cephalograms, CBCT scans are now used not only for diagnostic imaging for such conditions as ZMC fractures and other cranio-facial trauma, they’re also used in intra-operative applications. One of the growing areas of application for this technology is CBCT-based surgical navigation. Now maxillo-facial surgeons can process the same 3D images they’ve utilized for diagnosis through software programs that can be used to guide them during surgery.

CBCT imaging also enables dentists and ENT physicians to uncover other problems, such as air passage abnormalities, that are instrumental in causing such conditions as sleep apnea. As with many dental specialties, CBCT cephalometric imaging is changing the paradigm for ENT physicians and maxillo-facial surgeons.

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