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Introducing dental radiography into your practice opens the door to a more thorough diagnosis of your patient’s oral conditions. It also allows you to develop a complete treatment plan and plan your approach to that treatment—all leading to better overall outcomes for your dental patients.
What the brochure didn’t tell you was that dental radiography would also bring its own unique challenges—including a new radiography technique steeped in geometrical mystery to master!
Next in the series is tips on imaging the Maxillary molars in dogs.
The ability to visualise the teeth, their root structure (and number) and their position within the mouth will certainly help improve your ability to acquire diagnostic images, and a clear skull anatomy model (Fig.1) is just the ticket to help hone these skills.
These teeth are both 3-rooted and are positioned in a more palatal direction than the premolars in the upper arcades. In the very simplest of terms, they lie more broadly across the back of the mouth.
It is common to encounter trouble when imaging teeth 109, 110 / 209, and 210, and the plate/sensor placement is often the culprit.
Positioning a large plate/sensor (e.g., Size 4, 5 or 6) in a rostrocaudal direction to x-ray these teeth can have limited success. A more reliable option is to place a small plate/sensor (e.g., Size 2) in the same palatal direction (Fig. 2 yellow arrow) as the teeth themselves, then utilise the bisecting angle technique to capture the image.
It will take a little practice to centre your beam over the plate/sensor, but you’ll find that you can now image these two teeth isolated from the other teeth in the arcade. Be sure to place the crown of the 109 / 209 centrally over the plate and with the bulk (or length) of the plate palatal to the teeth – this will ensure that the root tips will be captured.
The end result will be an x-ray focused on these two teeth, placed centrally on the plate with their length along the full length of the plate (Fig.3).
Remember, what you do on one side of the mouth, you’ll most likely have to repeat on the other side.
If you are carrying out a full survey, be prepared that you may need to repeat that separate x-ray, for the last molars on each arcade, even the mandibular molars. Having multiples of each sized plate will have you taking xrays quickly and efficiently.
For over 15 years Maggie has worked in small animal general practice and we’re sure she’s a familiar face to many in the industry. Her passion for dentistry led to her obtaining the Diploma of Veterinary Nursing (Dental) and the Veterinary Technician Specialty VTS (Dentistry). Maggie has experience in General Practice Dentistry as well as in Specialty practice having conducted nurse dental clinics and assisting in both general and advanced specialty procedures. As an experienced and qualified trainer, Maggie has provided training in dentistry to veterinary teams both domestically and internationally and brings her contagious passion for dentistry to her role at iM3 in providing training and support to our clients.
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