Description

Dental Radiology-Understanding the X-ray image
Laetitia Brocklebank.
Oxford University Press 1997

The stated intention of this book is to primarily meet the requirements of the practising dentist. It has achieved just that.

It is not a manual of technique since the correct assumption is that this should all be second nature by the time the reader is referring to this book. It is also not intended to provide the reader with information on the many legal requirements that govern ionising radiation or guidelines on clinical prescriptions of radiographs. There are many other sources of that information.

It starts by providing a mercifully short introduction to the physics of x-rays but gives some good information about the contents of a film packet which would useful in training new dental nurses.

The anatomical structures are grouped together and each radiograph has a series of arrow pointing out the features with a letter and a number. These are decoded in Appendix B at the end of the book though they might more usefully have been on an attached book mark type card to obviate the need to constantly flick backwards and forwards to it when viewing the radiographs.

Chapter 3 provided a checklist for viewing radiographs and goes into quite considerable detail about what can be seen an dhow to describe it for the puposes of, presumably, writing a report on the x-rays as is now the requirement.

Localisation merits a chapter on its own with an explanation of parallax dominating this part of the chapter whilst other chapters on abnormalities, pulp and root changes such as short roots addressed these areas very comprehensively.

The chapter on non-inflammatory pathological periapical changes included periodontal disease though the inclusion of 5 panoramics without a warning regarding their limited use in periodontal management reflects the purpose of the book to help understand the image rather than provide guidance on it prescription.

Radiolucencies and radiopaque lesions acquired their own chapter each and provided a comprehensive overview of this situation though some of it would not be general practice territory such has the use of occipto-mental view and posterior-anterior projections. It seemed odd that caries did not merit a chapter of its own.

All in all the book is a very useful manual of reference, ideal for peer review and audit, equally important for a vocational dental practitioner tutorial and a must for the practice bookshelf.

Reviewed by Len D’Cruz