Newspaper Article

Panoramic dental X-rays 'largely useless'

Siegel-Itzkovich, Judy

2005

Overview

As the name implies, panoramic X-rays provide a wide- angle view of the teeth, jaws and surrounding structures. Patients have a panoramic X-ray taken for an initial evaluation, followed by a series of close-up views of all sections of the teeth, called periapical X-rays. A periapical X-ray gives an in-depth look at a particular tooth. A \"full-mouth series\" consists of a group of periapical X-rays taken of all the patient's teeth. Nearly everything a dentist needs to know about a person's oral health is revealed by full-mouth periapical X-rays, said [Lida Radfar], meaning the routine panoramic view serves no real purpose. She and her colleagues randomly selected 1,000 panoramic X-rays from records of 1,000 patients admitted to UB dental-school clinics over four years. Two dental experts evaluated the X-rays for evidence of bone lesions or other indications of trouble. The evaluators found a total of 352 lesions, and concluded that all but a few would have been picked up by full-mouth- series X-rays. \"We're lucky to have a unique animal model for atherosclerosis - familial hypercholesterolemic (FH) swine, whose genetic defect causes them to spontaneously develop high blood cholesterol leading to atherosclerosis and vascular dysfunction by eight months of age, very similar to the way human beings do,\" said Kruse-Elliot. She noted that the FH pigs' blood vessels don't function normally compared with normal pigs. \"However when the FH pigs were fed cranberry juice powder made from whole cranberries for six months, their vessels acted more like normal pigs' while a control group of FH pigs had significantly less vascular relaxation. The researchers, who discovered that pigs are very fond of tart whole cranberries, are planning a series of experiments to dig deeper into the cranberry- vessel function link by applying tests used on humans to the pigs.

• Publisher: The Jerusalem Post Ltd
• Subject: Radfar, Lida