Department of Radiodontia: Interpretation of Dental Radiographs

Abstract

SINCE the discovery of the roentgen ray, dental diagnosis has advanced almost exclusively in the field of roentgen-ray technic. The old methods of diagnosis, namely, inspection, palpation, percussion, response to thermal changes, and the interpretation of the various subjective symptoms of pain have to a great extent become a lost art. The convenience of the roentgen ray, its time-saving qualities, its Ford-like production and cost, its popularity among the laity, and its unerring diagnosis in long-standing chronic bone conditions make for it a very definite place as a part, but only a part, in the scheme of dental diagnosis. Its limitations are shown very forcibly when a patient presents with some manifestations of dental ill which the roentgen ray fails to reveal. As a matter of fact, except to show abnormalities, dental radiography is of very little value in the diagnosis of affections of the teeth and jaw which have not caused sufficient bone destruction to show definitely through the superimposed com...