The maxillary bone and its adjacent structures on panoramic tomography
2: The study for reading method of panoramic tomography

Hitoshi Nakayama
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Niigata University School of Dentistry
(Chief: Prof. Juske Ito)

Abstract
This study was designed to assess the effectiveness of simplified reading method of panoramic tomography (PT) applied to volunteers consisted of undergraduate dental students and young trainee dentists.
Eleven PTs including eight with malignant lesion of the maxillary sinus and the adjacent tissue were given to volunteers who were requested to read films within two minutes and to record their findings. Then the volunteers were divided into two groups. Group A repeated to read the same films again without providing any new information. Group B repeated to read the same films again within two minutes after a schematized check point list was given. Group A did not show any significant improvement, whereas Group B showed definite improvement in pointing out abnormal findings which could not be detected in the previous film reading. In routine daily practice it is very difficult for general dentists to read radiograms in detail on each patient. In these circumstances there is a strong tendency to miss unfamiliar structures that may result in overlooking malignant lesions. The present study clearly showed that paying attention to some important lines on PTs that can easily provided by a simplified schematic check list facilitates to find malignant lesions which are usual unfamiliar to general dentists.

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