Why Do I Need A CT Scan

Are you curious as to why you might need a CT scan after your dentist has already taken a slew of x-rays?

In this video, Dr. Anderson explains the importance of a 3-dimensional CT scan in diagnosing and treating patients.

Isn't technology fascinating?!

“One of the questions that we get frequently from patients is why do I need a cat scan given the fact that when patients arrive they've already had a two-dimensional picture taken (or panoramic film) taken by their dentist. And that film is good, but it doesn't tell us in three dimensions how much bone you really have, at least for implants anyway.

Now if you're talking about pathology, it doesn't tell us where the pathology is either. So, a cat scan is much more informative from the standpoint that it gives us YOU in three dimensions so we can see the thickness and the breadth of the bone and if you have pathology, we can see how far that pathology extends. Even for impacted teeth we can see where they are, if they're lying on vital structures, and if there's going to be a problem with the surgery so we can prepare for it.

We use cat scans in planning for our all-on-four cases, for more complex 3^rd molar cases, and for our more complex bone grafting cases. We can actually do that in conjunction with the lab and with our general dentist partners in order to actually fabricate devices in a guided way, so that we can cut down on surgical time.

So the cat scan is invaluable in our practice. Now, if you asked me this 15 years ago I wouldn't have realized how much of our practice it makes up today. But now we probably can't go an hour without doing a cat scan on someone to help with their treatment.”