CBCT in endodontics

Radiographic assessment is an essential part of endodontic treatment for accurate endodontic diagnosis, treatment planning, control of the procedure and evaluation of results. At present, radiographic assessment in endodontics is performed by intraoral conventional and panoramic radiography, but both of them have some limitations such as : two-dimention nature,super imposition and geometric distortion,etc. however CBCT produces undistorted three-dimensional information of the maxillofacial skeleton, including teeth and their surrounding tissues with a lower effective radiation dose than computed tomography and on the other hand, the spatial resolution and the contrast resolution of CBCT is lower than that of conventional film-based or digital intraoral radiography. Cone beam computed tomography is a useful addition to the endodontist’s armamentarium for identifying root canals .however, it should only be reserved for cases where root canal anatomy cannot be fully appreciated with existing aids, such as parallax radiographs and the dental operating microscope. CBCT in Endodontics can be used for assessment of the presence of periapical lesions and tooth morphology and its complexities ,accessory canals, presence of an extra canal, which is hard to find, problems encountered during endodontic treatment like over-extension or under-extension,detection of VRF, detection of internal or external root resorption. Cone beam computed tomography enables periapical radiolucencies to be detected before they would be apparent on conventional radiographs. The most important limitation of CBCT is its artifacts that make interpretation of images difficult.These artifacts include: beam artifacts, partial volume artifacts, noise and hardening artifacts. All in all , successful management of endodontic problems depends on diagnostic imaging techniques to provide the critical information about the teeth under examination, and their surrounding anatomy . Therefore, CBCT is a crucial component in management of endodontic problems