Importance of cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) in the pre evaluation of surgical removal of impacted canine, premolar and supernumerary teeth

Impacted theeth could be defined as unsatisfactory tooth eruption at its suitable position. Mostly impacted teeth is wisdom teeth, and after followed by upper canine and lower premolar, respectively.During and after removal of the impacted theeth, some complications may be seen such as damage to adjacent teeth, false extraction, nerve damage, teeth/root escape, maxillary sinus and nasal base perforation. A proper radiographic evaluations have great interest to eliminate these complications. Conventinal radiograph in dentistry such as periapical, occlusal, cephalometric and panoramic radiographs (OPG) provide only (2D) examination. Thus, they provide limited information about the anatomical structures, size and localization of any incidental lesions. In addition, there are many disadvantages of (2D) imaging methods such as cross-bite, magnification, distortion of images, and perspective problems. Due to insufficiency of (2D) imaging methods, a novel method named cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) or dental volumetric tomography (DVT), which is especially developed to used in head and neck imagings. CBCT has several advantages including low radiation dose, accurate precise evaluation, faster scan, lesser artifact and magnification. In our study, in the pre-evalutaion of total of 108 impacted canine, premolar and superneumerary teeth, (OPG) and CBCT images of 70 patients were assessed and resulting data were compared. In this study in which the importance of CBCT was evaluated before the surgical removal of impacted theeth in jaws rather than wisdom theeth, we concluded that in the removal of regarding theeth together with the OPG, CBCT imaging is necessity not an option in today's technology. Key words:, CBCT (Cone Beam Computed Tomography),Panoramic radyograph (OPG), Impacted teeth, Incidental lesions.