Cone Beam Vs. X-Ray

Those of you who are about to undergo a dental implant operation will soon realize the complexity of the procedure. To begin, your clinician will need to gather as much information regarding you, the patient, as possible. Obviously, the primary area of concern would be your mouth, the jaw, the sinus cavity, and other areas that may affect the surgery. At this point, the clinician would need to see anatomical images for better understanding of your physical make up. In order to do this today, there are two options: conventional X-ray or Cone Beam CT Imaging. Let's go over each one so that you could compare the two, allowing you to be better prepared for your dental implant surgery.
Conventional X-ray
X-ray technology has been around since 1895. The technology has largely been the backbone of medical and dental image diagnostics for most of the 20th century and it is still heavily used today in medicine. X-ray imaging, in its uttermost simplicity, is simply a photograph that could penetrate soft tissue such as skin, hair, and muscles. However, hard organic material such as bones are much to thick for the X-rays to penetrate. The result is an image of your skeletal structure. Originally, bones would be revealed as dark shapes in the photographs, but in the 20th century, the negatives were inverted to show bones in white solid and shadowy shapes which does reveal a bit more detail.

Some advantages to a conventional X-ray is its accessibility, cost, and simplicity. X-ray machines are virtually used in all dental or medical offices and are relatively affordable. The units are also simple to operate and interpret by the clinician, allowing speedy results. Despite these advantages, the conventional X-ray imaging takes only 2 dimensional images of the targeted area, giving clinicians a height and width analysis but not a depth perception. Additionally, X-ray radiation levels are higher than Cone Beam CT scanning, allowing only a few snapshots before the maximum amount of radiation could be inflicted on a patient.
Cone Beam CT Dental Imaging
Similar to the X-ray, a Cone Beam CT machine also uses X-ray beams to penetrate soft tissue. The only difference is the fact that the Cone Beam machine revolves around the head in order to capture height, width, and depth perception. Thanks to the 3D imaging, the surgeon could identify crucial parts to your anatomy such as nerves, sinus cavities, and even bone density (a concern for those who have too little bone mass for a successful implant.) Whereas conventional X-ray fires a round of X-ray beams per snapshot (which could total up to a dozen snapshots), the Cone Beam system bounces X-ray beams off its own deflector-like plating, reducing radiation exposure to the patient.

The entire process takes no more than 40 seconds in most cases, and in that 40 second window, the Cone Beam machine takes over 300 snapshots. A software would then compute all of the 300 snapshots into a 3 dimensional image of the patient's targeted anatomy. The accuracy would be incredible and you would be ensured that your oral surgeon would have all the diagnostic imaging that he or she needs to perform your surgery flawlessly. The advantages are clear, but some are still skeptical because of its relatively high cost and the new technology. However, is it not worth the cost for a one-time successful implant?