Thanks to new technology in use by Dr. Paige Woods and the holistic dental team at Brighton Dental, we can now see a clearer image of your teeth than ever before and examine your mouth slice by slice – just like with a medical CT scan but at a fraction of the cost and with very little radiation.
When a traditional x-ray doesn’t tell the whole story, we can now use Cone Beam 3D Imaging – also called Cone Beam Computed Tomography or simply CBCT – to see a clear picture in amazing detail. That means we can be even more certain of the options we offer to you. And you can be more confident in our ability to help you without pain, hassles or wasting your time.
Want to learn more about what we can see during the 15-second scan? Keep reading.
Details, Details, Details
With CBCT, we can see your mouth and the nearby structures in your head in 3D and in incredible detail. While the scan takes only seconds, we can see your teeth in cross-section, see spacing issues of concern better than before and even note how your jaw, sinuses and nerve bundles interact with your teeth.
Traditional bite-wing x-rays are great, but what we can see is limited. Panoramic radiographs give us a more complete picture, but both show only 2 dimensions – that is, a flat image. Cone Beam 3D Imaging adds a revolutionary new dimension to what we can see while showing details in clarity greater than we had available in the past. For the first time, we can see distortion-free 3D details of spatial relationships related to the teeth, jaw and other head and face structures.
Plus, we can see cross-sections of any teeth we choose, something never possible before. If you think of a combination of the overall picture provided by a panoramic dental x-ray with the detail and dimension available from a medical CT scan, then you’re starting to understand this new 3D imaging machine at Brighton Dental in San Diego.
How Cone Beam 3D Imaging Works
Using a special CBCT machine, Cone Beam 3D Imaging allows us to send totally safe, very low-power x-rays to the specific area we want see, the mouth. This radiation is sent in a divergent cone pattern that fans out, not in a single narrow column. The data is received by a sensor attached to a computer. Using special algorithms designed just for this system, the computer generates a unique 3D image that we can see on a monitor. We can rotate this image, seeing all sides of your teeth and related structures. And we can look at individual slices to see problems within teeth.
Using all this information, we can make an accurate diagnosis – which leads to an excellent treatment plan and the best possible outcome for you. There’s no other way we can see a cross-section of a tooth or a 3D image of your mouth.
Easy For Everyone
Perhaps the best thing about Cone Beam 3D Imaging is how easy it is. It only takes 15 seconds and is performed much like a panoramic x-ray. You just have to remove all metal, including hairpins, hearing aids and removable bridges.
Dental insurance usually doesn’t cover this kind of scan, but it’s much more affordable than a medical CT scan. We’ll make the process easy for you and file paperwork with your insurance company if necessary.
When used in situations where traditional 2D x-rays don’t show all we need to see, this remarkable new type of 3D imagining lets us see your oral and dental health in a new way – so we can help you in the best ways possible. Isn’t technology amazing?
