6. Dental and maxillofacial radiology equipment

The use of X-rays by dentists came very early (the first commercial equipment dates back to 1905), and today dental radiology is used both by dental surgeons (and by radiologists to whom dentists subcontract an imaging service) and by orthodontists (of the 40,000 French dental surgeons around 2005, 18,000 had an orthodontic specialty). Dentists use intra-oral imaging and sometimes 3D imaging (localized around a few teeth in endodontics and implantology, jaw-wide in periodontics), while orthodontists are interested in imaging the whole jaw, in radiography (teleradiography) and global 3D imaging. Perhaps oversimplifying, orthodontists are primarily interested in jaw geometry, while surgeons also seek information on tissue quality, particularly bone. Orthodontists and surgeons use the dental panoramic both as a first-line examination and as a pre-operative assessment (which may have legal...