Healthy Smile Dental always strives to provide you with the highest standard of professional dental treatment to meet your oral health needs. That’s why we only use the latest, state-of-the-art dental technology to support our dedicated team of dental professionals.
For your dental imaging needs, we can provide you with safe, quick, convenient and accurate dental X-rays with our CRANEX™ OPG digital X-ray equipment.
OPG X-rays – advanced all-seeing technology
An OPG, or orthopantomogram, is a type of dental X-ray used to scan your entire lower facial anatomy. It provides a panoramic, or full-mouth, X-ray of your upper and lower teeth, jaw joints, and maxillary sinuses. OPGs are actually made up of multiple scans from different angles, which are digitally composited into a single high-quality image (see image below).
Sectional X-rays are another option, when there is only a small region of interest that needs to be scanned. In this case, a patient’s radiation dose is minimised by scanning only what is absolutely necessary for your dentist’s assessment and treatment planning needs.
How are OPGs useful for dental assessments?
OPGs are particularly useful because they create clear, precise images that show all the teeth in your mouth, whether they are visible or not. From hidden root fractures to impacted wisdom teeth, an OPG can reveal every nook and cranny in your oral cavity.
For your dentist, nothing is hidden, and all is revealed – in great detail! This ensures that they can make a quick and accurate diagnosis of your oral condition.
When do you need to have a digital X-ray?
You may need to have a dental X-ray so that your dentist can diagnose oral conditions and/or plan dental treatments, including:
- treatment for wisdom teeth issues, such as impacted teeth
- difficult tooth extractions
- hidden tooth decay and cavities
- root canal treatment
- dental implant placement
- orthodontic treatment for misaligned teeth, such as braces
- removable dentures – full or partial
- emergency dental, such as oral injury and nerve infections
Safer treatment and technology
At Healthy Smile Dental, your health and safety are two of our top priorities. We always take diagnostic benefits vs. patient radiation doses into consideration, when selecting the most suitable X-ray imaging mode for your oral assessment.
We apply the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) safety principle to minimise radiation exposure when obtaining diagnostic information – for all our patients and staff. Additionally, our digital X-ray equipment uses up to 90% less radiation than standard dental X-ray units. That’s about as much radiation as you would expect to receive from the natural environment and other sources over a 1.7 day period.
Super-fast scanning times
A complete oral scan for an adult takes 9 seconds, and for children it takes 8 seconds, with sectional X-rays taking even less time. Faster still, image processing is instant. That means you can view the final X-ray image with your dentist, as soon as you step over to the monitor to take a look!
Easy, comfortable and convenient procedure
Our CRANEX™ OPG machine provides one of the most comfortable X-ray experiences in Brisbane. Whether you are tall or short, big or small, an X-ray is a breeze when using our versatile OPG machine.
You simply step into the open booth, and rest your chin on a small grooved platform, which is adjusted for your height and comfort. Your dentist will ask you to bite down gently on a sterile, disposable mouth piece, to help keep your teeth and jaw perfectly still during the scan. You can see this small mouth piece positioned between the front teeth in the OPG image above.
If you are wearing any glasses, jewellery or metal accessories that may interfere with the scan, your dentist may request that you remove them temporarily.
Contact us
For more information about our digital dental X-ray services, call our friendly reception at Healthy Smile Dental on 07 3219 9806 (Underwood) or 07 3273 3220 (Calamvale).
References
Ludlow, J. B., Davies-Ludlow, L. E., & White, S. C. (2008). Patient Risk Related to Common Dental Radiographic Examinations. The Journal of the American Dental Association, 139(9), 1237-1243. doi:10.14219/jada.archive.2008.0339