Digital Dental x-rays: Improved diagnsos with minimal radiation

     Dental x-rays are digital in our Smithtown office. We are proud that a recent New Your State Inspection found that our office uses the lowest radiation levels in our area! Our new upgraded digital x-ray sensors allow us to lower radiation exposure  up to 98% compared to old fashioned film x-rays.  Dr. Shvartsman can enlarge, zoom in and chance contrast and brightness levels with his Digital X-rays.  The images that are produced give us more information than conventional x-rays. With this added information Dr. Shvartsman can diagnose smaller cavities that, when treated earlier, results in more conservative fillings and less pain for our patients.

The Galileos 3-D Cone Beam CT is a new addition our office. Each 14 second scan is equivalent to only 2 hours of natural background radiation.

     Now Dr. Shvartsman’s patients will fully benefit  from the revolutionary cone beam Digital 3-D technology of the Galileos.  A quick outside the mouth scan is all it takes. Patients will not have to suffer through 18-22 uncomfortable individual inside-the-mouth x-rays. This is especially great news for people with a high gag reflex, small mouths or who have difficulty taking conventional x-rays.
 
     With the Galileos images Dr. Shvartsman can see inside the bone and teeth in 3 dimensions, making diagnosis more exact and accurate.   This translates more predictable and safer treatment outcomes. The Galileos gives vastly more information with 4 times less radiation than a complete set of digital x-rays and 80-100 times less radiation than traditional CAT scans. In addition, both jaws and the sinuses are clearly seen with the 3-D Galileos scan, while a complete set of 18-22 individual 2-D x-rays only show the teeth and a little bit of the surrounding bone.  In fact, physicians such as ENTs, are now referring their patients to Dr. Shvartsman for Galileos scans.
 
     Improved diagnosis with the Galileos is just the tip of the iceberg.  Not only can Dr. Shvartsman finally see the extent and proximity of tooth decay to the tooth nerve, but with horizontal slices though the tooth we will be able to accurately identify all the nerves in the tooth. At State of the Art Comfort Dentistry we have observed a 50-60% root canal failure rate during initial exams of new patients to our practice. Many of these root canal re-infections are due to missed nerves. Some teeth have 1-2 additional nerves in their teeth. When these nerves are not found and not treated properly the tooth may remain painful or become infected months to years later following treatment. Armed with the Galileos 3-D scans and our Surgical Dental Microscope, the possibility of missing any additional nerves with become a virtual impossibility in our dental office. This will vastly reduce or eliminate the need for Apicoectomy surgery or the need to remove the crown and posts in the future in order to re-do the root canal treatment. Our patients can feel confident that their treatment was done right the first time and no additional time, expense, irritation and pain will be a part of their future because of missed nerves during root canal treatment.