Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Cone Beam CT has exploded onto the dental market in the last few years. The technology is amazing, allowing for high definition views in three dimensions. Cone beam imaging allows you to not just see more, but to see it differently. Diagnosis and treatment planning will never be the same. When looking for the right Dental Cone Beam for your office, there are a few things to keep in mind.
- Field of View: For Cone Beam, field of view refers to the volume of the patients skull that is captured in the image. If you are an oral surgeon, you may want a larger field of view that extends up around the sinuses and condyles. For single implant placement or endodontic diagnosis, a focused field of view that captures a three dimensional image of a single quadrant may be perfect.
- Radiation: Every machine emits a different amount of radiation. Consider your diagnostic needs with the appropriate type of image to keep radiation exposure to a minimum.
- Software: Consider what features the software has available to you. Important to consider is navigation throughout the software, slices available and how those are manipulated, as well as the ability to change the slice being viewed (alter the cross sectional cut of the image). Every cone beam imaging system has the ability to export data to other imaging programs. These are always at an additional cost but may provide more features essential to your particular practice.