My office and x-ray radiation.

There have been some news stories recently in regard to the amount of radiation patients are being exposed to via dental x-rays. The first mention of this was in the Wall Street Journal. The current interest in this subject was probably brought about by the new airport screening methods prompting a closer look at radiation exposure in general.

X-ray radiation is a very serious concern for all of us. This is something that I have focused on for years. My office has used the most sensitive x-ray film available for years prior to switching to an all computer based system about 4 years ago. We minimize the number of x-rays we take and customize our approach for each patient. The system that I chose for my office when we moved, was and is the most sensitve x-ray system available. This means that for each x-ray image that we take we are exposing our patients to the least amount of radiation possible to get that image. For a given amount of radiation we can take 3 images in our office and a conventional digital x-ray, electronic sensor would only get one image for that same amount of radiation exposure for a patient.

The x-ray image on this page is from our phosphor sensor plate dental x-ray system of one of our patients within the last year [with his permission of course]. In the past, we used film badge dental team radiation monitoring for years. With the technology and systems we used prior to our even more sensitive systems now, we didn't ever register any significant exposure for any of our team so our regulators agreed to let us stop monitoring ourselves. It was simply a waste of time and money to continue monitoring services when nothing was recorded for years.

The system which we have now is very versatile but expensive. It allows us to take minimal radiation individual x-rays as well as panoramic x-rays. The individual x-rays are more detailed and clearer due to their low radiation, very short exposure time. Movement of the film or patient is much less of a problem with short exposure times. With increased sensitivity there is however a 'grain' problem. This is similar to the pixel problem in digital photography when very low light photographs are taken. When greatly enlarged individual grains [or pixels] are seen making the image more 'fuzzy'. In my mind this is a very good trade-off for exposing my dental family to the least amount of radiation possible and still having good diagnostic images. I think you will agree. As a matter of fact, we had to replace one x-ray machine when we switched to this dental x-ray system because it couldn't be set to give a low enough exposure to get properly exposed x-ray images.

Unfortunately there are some artifacts visible on most of the x-ray images which we take in our office. [There is a faint white line across the image of the x-ray near the bottom.] Artifacts virtually never interfere with the diagnostic use of these images. If we can use 1/3 of the radiation that conventional dental digital x-rays require we should all be happier. Again, the phosphor sensor plates we use only need 1/3 of the x-ray exposure to produce a good image compared to other fully digital dental x-ray sensors which are used in most other dental offices. There are still today many film based x-rays taken in other dental offices which require much, much more radiation than Smiles of Skokie uses for our dental family. We have your overall health in mind at my office in many different and widely varying ways.

We are restoring many implants. Some of the recent news articles were specifically addressing the newer cone beam computerized tomography [cbct] x-ray technology which is very useful for implant placement and other denal uses. Implant placement can be critical for success of the final implant restoration. There is more information in regard to this technology from an online article by a team of dentists headed by Dr. Martin Palomo of Case Western Reserve Dental School, which discusses the advantages of this system and the amount of radiation exposure . According to this article, cbct exposes the patient to, 'up to 4 times less radiation than a conventional' CAT scan. It is on the order of the same exposure that a patient gets from a conventional, film based, panoramic x-ray [which is at least 3 times what our patients receive from panoramic x-rays] and about 1/3 of the radiation dosage passengers receive on a round trip airplane flight from Paris to Tokyo.

I think that this is enough detail in regard to the x-ray radiation subject for now. It was recently in the news and I thought you might like to know more about my dental office and our attention to your health in every possible facet. If you have more questions, please contact me for more information in regard to radiation or any other oral health related topic. It is always good to hear from you!