New Trends and Advances in Oral and Maxillofacial Imaging

Abstract

Abstract: Various modalities are available for the diagnosis of diseases affecting the oral and maxillofacial regions. The currently used imaging modalities include intra-oral radiographs, panoramic radiographs, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) including cone-beam (CB) CT, ultrasonography (US), and nuclear medicine including positron emission tomography (PET). In the present review, we describe the application and significance of each modality in the diagnostic process of oral and maxillofacial diseases. Keywords: Panoramic radiograph, cone beam CT, MRI, PET-CT, US, imaging, oral and maxillofacial. INTRODUCTION The discovery of the X-ray by WC Roentgen in 1895 be-gan the history of diagnostic imaging of the human body, including that of oral and maxillofacial regions. Since then, a number of diagnostic imaging modalities have been devel-oped. Different modalities are applied for the diagnosis of diseases in oral and maxillofacial regions, and many reports have suggested the usefulness of intra-oral radiographs, panoramic radiographs, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), ultrasonography (US), and nu-clear medicine including positron emission tomography (PET). In the present review, we introduce the applications of each modality and explain the significance of its image in the diagnosis of oral and maxillofacial diseases. The present review discusses the diagnosis of medical diseases using dental panoramic radiographs, the diagnostic significance of computed tomography (CT) including multi detector CT (MDCT) and cone-beam (CB) CT, the application of mag-netic resonance imaging (MRI) for various kinds of oral-related diseases, and computer simulations for dental implant and orthognathic surgery planning using data of helical CT images. The usefulness of ultrasonography (US) for viewing surface soft tissues such as salivary glands, tongue, and lymph nodes, and the advantages and limitations of positron emission tomography (PET) with fluorine-18-labeled fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (18FDG) are also described.