REVIEW ARTICLE


Ultralow Dose MSCT Imaging in Dental Implantology



Gerlig Widmann1, *, Asma'a A. Al-Ekrish2
1 Department of Radiology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
2 Department of Oral Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of Dentistry, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia


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Creative Commons License
© 2018 Widmann and Al-Ekrish.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Radiology, Medizinische Universitat Innsbruck, Innrain 52, Christoph-Probst-Platz, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria; Tel: +4351290030; E-mail: gerlig.widmann@i-med.ac.at


Abstract

Introduction:

The Council Directive 2013/59 Euratom has a clear commitment for keeping medical radiation exposure as low as reasonably achievable and demands a regular review and use of diagnostic reference levels.

Methods:

In dental implantology, the range of effective doses for cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) shows a broad overlap with multislice computed tomography (MSCT). More recently, ultralow dose imaging with new generations of MSCT scanners may impart radiation doses equal to or lower than CBCT. Dose reductions in MSCT have been further facilitated by the introduction of iterative image reconstruction technology (IRT), which provides substantial noise reduction over the current standard of filtered backward projection (FBP).

Aim:

The aim of this article is to review the available literature on ultralow dose CT imaging and IRTs in dental implantology imaging and to summarize their influence on spatial and contrast resolution, image noise, tissue density measurements, and validity of linear measurements of the jaws.

Conclusion:

Application of ultralow dose MSCT with IRT technology in dental implantology offers the potential for very large dose reductions compared with standard dose imaging. Yet, evaluation of various diagnostic tasks related to dental implantology is still needed to confirm the results obtained with various IRTs and ultra-low doses so far.

Keywords: Radiation dose, Dental Implantology, Cone beam computed tomography, Multislice computed tomography, Ultralow dose, Filtered backward projection.