Evaluation of Dental Radiography used in General Practice for Conservative & Endodontic Therapy at Khartoum State

Abstract

Dental radiography is the main diagnostic mean in dentistry especially in endodontic therapy. This study was conducted to evaluate the use of dental radiography relevant to conservative and endodontic treatment in Khartoum State. One hundred and thirty general dental practitioners were randomly selected from 378 working dentists in both governmental and private sector. Aquestionnaire was used collecting data about frequency of requesting radiographs; number of radiographs for root canal treatment; presence or absence of film holders, viewing tools and record keeps of radiographs, type of machine, technique and protection. They were also questioned about the location of the radiographic machine relative to the clinic and its frequency of checkup (Appendix). The majority of the dentists(97. 7%) didn't use the radiography routinely for diagnosis and only 3.2% used it for all steps of endodontic treatment. The ideal parallel technique had been used by 6.7% and bisecting angle technique by 93.3% of the cases. Although the parallel technique had been used but it was not used in its perfect manner because of using the forceps for holding the film instead of using the known film holders. In regard to protection measures, lead coated and cement were equally used (40%) and (20%) did not have any sort of protection means. The majority of dentists (99.2%) referred for radiographs to be taken by an X-ray technician and only 0.8% did the radiographs by themselves. It was concluded that shortage in use of dental radiography was evident and recommended that great attention should be focused towards Improving this important field. Decision makers in oral and dental health should adopt continuous courses for dentists training and adequate numbers of machines should be avail for training of postgraduate and undergraduate students in different universities .