Digital Radiography in Dentistry: Advantages and Disadvantages

Digital radiography has been used widely in medicine. Recently, the development of cost-effective intra-oral and extra-oral digital technology coupled with an increase in computerization of practices has made digital imaging a superior alternative in many respects to conventional film imaging. The advantages and disadvantages of this digital technology are discussed below.

Advantages of Digital Radiography/Imaging:

• Image manipulation - selecting the information of greatest diagnostic value and suppressing the rest.
• Contrast enhancement - compensate for over or under exposure of the digital image.
• 3-D reconstruction - used to reconstruct intra- and extra-oral images
• Filtration - addition of filters to the airspace around the face can clarify the soft tissue profile if the original soft tissue image was poor.
• Teleradiology - digital image file can be further reduced in size by compression techniques, and sent via a modem and telephone line to colleagues for review; had the advantages of not losing radiographs in the post and saving time if an urgent appointment is required. The operator at the other end can also manipulate the image if desired.

Disadvantages of Digital Radiography/Imaging:

• Cost - more expensive
• Sensor dimensions - The sensor for radiation image, Charge Coupled Device (CCD) can capture the same amount of information as conventional film.
• Cross-infection control - Each intra-oral sensor and plate must be covered by a plastic bag, and this bag is changed between patients. However, if they become directly contaminated there is no way of sterilizing them and they should be discarded regardless of expense.
• Medicolegal - the ability to manipulate the images for fraudulent purposes
• CCD system - quite still bulky for CCD