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I've lost all faith in the dental profession. Every dentist I visit gives me a widely different diagnosis, and I am more and more convinced that there is little science in evaluating the gray blobs in dental x-ray film.
The solution? CAT scans. Ok, I don't actually know if you can see a cavity
using a CAT scan, but considering the high-definition 2-D or 3-D pictures you can get out of the things I think it's a safe bet that you can. Sure, it's quite expensive to use the machines. However, I'm sure you can set up a dental hospital where many dentists share one device to reduce costs. Also, perhaps you can make them smaller since only your head needs to fit in the donut hole.
Imaging Sciences
http://www.imagingsciences.com/
Maker of the i-CAT dental CAT scan system. [bristolz, Jan 24 2006]
Regular old panoramic dental X-rays
http://images.googl...08,GGLD:en%26sa%3DN
I've had a few of these. The last one was just before I got braces. [half, Jan 24 2006]
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They put CAT scanners in lorries, now, and drive them around the country.
Stopping at hospitals, obviously. |
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Anyway, since I am related to several dentists, I offer no bun. |
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Aw, this post isn't anti-dentist. I want to help dentists. I want to help them not drill into a healthy tooth while missing the rotting one. |
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CAT is xray and Imaging Sciences builds one for dentistry and oral surgery called the i-Cat. It's in fairly widespread use and generates 3D images of the teeth and oral structures. Our periodontist has one. |
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Bloke takes his pet hamster to the vet as it's clearly under the weather. The vet takes one look and says that the hamster is going to die and tells him it'll cost him $100. |
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The fella demands a second opinion. |
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In comes a dog, takes one look at the hamster declares "woof" and walks out. |
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In comes a cat, gives the hamster the once over, "miaows" and walks out. |
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The vet says "yep, he's going to die, that'll be $800". |
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"$800!! A moment ago, it was only $100" |
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"yes", replied the vet, "but it's much more now given the Lab work and the CAT scan ..." |
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[bris] CAT doesn't have to be x-ray - the acronym stands for Computed Axial Tomography, and imaging methods include x-ray, gamma, positron emission, magnetic resonance and probably even ultrasound. I used to work on big industrial CAT scanners (x-ray and gamma), and often thought of adapting the dental panoramic film machines to tomographic. |
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Good point however I consider gamma, positron and other radiation emission imaging all to be xray. I hadn't thought about MRI within the CAT framework. |
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X-ray dustin's anything, and it may just surprise you to know that he swallowed the couch 2 years ago. |
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This is not really an invention, [World]. Surgeons routinely use CT and MRI to show abnormalities of the jaw and surrounding tissues. If the difficulty in making your diagnosis is because of poor imaging, I would think you could get one too. |
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In my limited knowledge of dentistry it seems like a lot of questions are things like: is the tooth alive or dead, does it need a root canal, etc. I am not sure imaging can distinguish these things. Maybe PET scan could (live vs dead tooth) but I do not think PET can resolve something as small as a tooth. |
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