The dental film machine, panoramic machine, oral CT (including CBCT) is the three major types of clinical imaging diagnostic equipment in dentistry. The first two provide doctors with two-dimensional images of lesions for initial interpretation, while oral CT (or CBCT) provides complete three-dimensional images, giving users a full range of more complete clinical interpretation of information. Because of the advantages and disadvantages of each of these three technologies, they are interdependent on each other and are still the main diagnostic equipment used in dental hospitals and outpatient clinics.
The dental film machine, although high resolution, but there are limitations on the size of the shooting position, often unable to obtain a larger area of the image, and the need to place the dental film in the patient's mouth, the patient shooting experience is not good; . Panoramic film, although the whole mouth can observe the overall image of the teeth, but there has been a distortion (distortion) and image overlap (overlap) two technical bottlenecks, and is still two-dimensional, can only observe the near and far in the middle, can not view the buccal-lingual direction. In recent years, the application of dental CT has become more and more perfect, due to the provision of three-dimensional images and local magnification observation, the clinical popularity is increasing. However, due to image reconstruction technology can not be further breakthroughs, metal artifacts and bone artifacts (see Figure 1) has always restricted the possibility of its full replacement of two-dimensional X-ray.
(Figure 1)This equilibrium, which has been maintained for years by the interdependence of 2D and 3D images, was changed in October this year (2018) by a research and development team from Chicago, USA. Utilizing high-quality CT images, they introduced a technology called "Intelligent 3D Panorama," which not only solves the problem of overlapping traditional panoramic images, but also solves the problem of image distortion that cannot be avoided by traditional CT due to interference from metal artifacts and bone artifacts.
The team used part of the AI algorithm to intelligently identify each patient's dental arch curve (see Figure 2.1) and the corresponding physiological curvature of the teeth (see Figure 2.2), and after many clinical tests, found that, even for patients with no teeth in their mouths or malformed arches, the intelligent 3D panoramic view can accurately locate the teeth along the personalized dental arch, and scan them step by step, from the inside out, to generate 33 panoramic views in one go! tomographic panorama! And the image quality is so good that even the periodontal membrane, which is only 0.25mm thick, can be clearly seen, with a clarity comparable to that of a small dental film (see Figure 3).
(Figure 2.1)?
(Figure 2.2)
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Traditional panoramic views are bound by a two-dimensional field of view, interference from spinal artifacts is prevalent, and image details of tooth structure and periodontal tissues are more difficult to identify, a technical problem that has plagued doctors for many years, and which has been alleviated by the successful development of intelligent 3D panoramic views. Starting in 2019, the simple and quick one-time formation of 33 tomographic panoramas is no longer a distant dream, but a commercial product within reach. (See Figure 4)
(Figure 4)Intelligent 3D panorama, which generates 33 tomographic panoramas at once, greatly improves the diagnostic efficiency of clinicians, and in the foreseeable future, intelligent 3D panorama is likely to become a convenient routine diagnostic tool for dental clinicians!