Diagnostic Imaging for Impacted Teeth

This chapter highlights concisely those techniques and methods that are useful in the clinical setting, as they pertain to impacted teeth. With the earlier introduction of spiral computerized tomography (CT) and subsequently of cone beam computerized tomography (CBCT), much debate was generated in relation to the justification for their use in orthodontics in general, and their value in the diagnosis and treatment planning of impacted teeth in particular. For planar radiography to provide a comparable level of positional information, a number of different views of the impacted tooth would need to be taken and the accumulated level of radiation that these would generate is of the same order as that emitted by the new CBCT machines. The CBCT imaging modality, which can give much more information with little or no increase in radiation dosage, is also discussed at the end of this chapter.