State-of-the-Art Dental Technology

Our office I'd say the three main components of technology we have cone beam CT, it's an office version of a CAT scan. For implants, if you don't have a CAT scan view, I won't do the case. I won't base my treatment plans on two dimensional film because there's too much guesswork. We also have something called an X-Guide, which is live navigational surgery. When it comes to putting implants in sometimes you may have a nerve proximity issue where the nerve is to close or the sinus is too shallow. Or if you're putting multiple implants in there, you want them to be as parallel for a bridge as possible so they work the best as possible. And this allows us to take a CAT scan image, put it on the navigation computer software, and we do live dynamic surgery. So basically, I know where I am within about a 10th of a millimeter of accuracy by watching the computer screen. We also have a laser in the office. It's the only one that's FDA approved for bone loss regeneration on teeth. They're also working on FDA clearance for bone loss on implants and that's why we specifically have it to help regenerate bone on implants that are having issues. Because nothing's perfect and even implants can get bone loss on them and it's nice to have technology in the office to be able to help with that. I think you need to stay current for technology for a couple reasons. Sometimes the technology is wonderful and you really should put it in the practice. I kind of felt that way with the X-Guide, it was a game changer in my opinion. Cone beam CTs in the office were a game changer to the point now where if I don't have a CT, I won't do the implant case. But sometimes technology is very gimmicky and you need to be up on it to see is it worth really using it or not. In-house technology, especially like with X-Guide is we can usually do cases sooner than later. We don't have to send things off to have things fabricated to use. We can actually use it the same day. Having the CAT scan in the office is nice because it's my basic X-ray unit. I can just take an X-ray right away and make sure is this a case that I can do or not. Because some cases may not be a good situation for a lot of the stuff that we do like implants or extractions and stuff like that just based on what we see on the CAT scan. Also, we may find other issues on the CAT scan that we didn't see on a normal conventional set of X-rays. And then I can get patients referred off to either, "Hey, you need a root canal on this tooth," or, "Hey, there is a wisdom tooth over here. Let's just keep an eye on it," or, you know, "Hey, we got something going on with your jaw joints. Let's have a splint looked at being made," or something like that.