Digital dentistry is one of the most exciting areas in the field of dental science right now. It’s an area that is gaining interest and acceptance among many dentists from periodontists to oral surgeons to orthodontists and general dentists. This page seeks to inform clinicians who are looking into digital dentistry on four things based on our experience and real case information from dental clinicians:
1) how patients benefit
2) how surgical, restorative and ortho-intervening dentists each benefit
3) the overall process
4) some details, insights and good sources for further information.
This information is not intended to replace course or clinical information from dental or medical professionals. It is intended to be an introduction leading to further acquisition of knowledge.

How Patients Benefit from Digital Dentistry
Before describing the process, some clinicians may wonder how all of this helps their patients. Here’s how.
First, digital dentistry enables clinicians to have enhanced diagnostic tools that can reveal problems and visual cues that, when coupled with clinical experience, can lead to best intervention methods not otherwise knowable from prior technology. Second, by planning in 3-D in advance of treating patients, chair-time or unexpected complications resulting in additional appointments can be reduced. Finally, digital dentistry provides clinicians with tools that lend themselves to forging stronger ties between surgical and restorative dentists that lead to optimum outcomes for the patient. More on this last point below.

How Surgical, Restorative and Ortho-Intervening Dentists Benefit
Oral surgeons, periodontists and prosthodontists benefit from digital dentistry in several ways. Surprises including oral and maxillofacial pathology, if present, can be reduced or eliminated. The amount of bone available for an implant can be determined in advance of surgery with respect to the precise location and positioning of an implant reducing any margin of uncertainty. Three-dimensional CT scans can provide accurate information on treatment area proximity to the aveolar nerve channel and sinus walls that 2-D x-rays may not always reveal. By working from digital copies of the same plan, dentists who perform surgery can work closer with restorative dentists before seeing the patient so that restorative concerns are addressed and outcomes optimized from both surgical and restorative perspectives. This can lead to restorative dentists being more satisfied with the results. What better way to garner more referrals than when patient, referring clinician and surgeon are happy with the outcome and restorative and surgeon are communicating to agree on treatment in advance?

The Digital Dentistry Process
At the bottom of each page on this website are a series of images that depict each stage in the process of digital dentistry. Obviously there are clinical parts in which 3D Diagnostix supports the professionals who provide those services. This section will go through the entire process a step at a time.
As you can see from the arrow-shaped images the stages are CT or CBCT scan, radiology report, 3D conversion, treatment plan, and surgical guide (for dental implant cases) for a great smile outcome.

Sending a patient for a CT or CBCT scan is the first step in this process. The CT and CBCT acronyms stand for computed tomography and cone beam computed tomography respectively. Instead of a 2D panorex or bite-wing x-ray, this technology is a 3D scan of a patient’s mandible or maxilla. The term scan is used because the machine creates a series of “slices” of the area being x-rayed. These slices are later assembled to make the 3D image.
Without any investment in equipment, clinicians getting started in digital dentistry can refer their patients to an experienced CBCT scan center in their area to accomplish this step. 3D Diagnostix supports a website exclusively on the topic of cone beam CT. It is simply called www.conebeam.com and contains a wealth of information for dentists. Areas covered by this informational site include CBCT– history, technology, case studies, comparisons to 2D dental x-ray technology, clinical forum and more.
The key things to know are that many maxillofacial CBCT machines emit much lower radiation than the full-body CT machine found in hospitals, 3D Diagnostix can provide a list of experienced maxillofacial scan centers in your area, a scan guide is recommended in most cases and almost everything else about CBCT can be found on conebeam.com.

After your patient gets a CT scan, it is a very good idea to get a radiology report based on the scan. A licensed oral maxillofacial radiologist can reveal important details in and around your area of interest including TMJ/sinus evaluation, implant sites, supernumeraries and pathology. If you haven’t received training in reading CT scans, this step can be invaluable in avoiding problems later.


Getting a 3D conversion of your patients CT scan is where the powerful diagnostic capability enabled by this technology becomes apparent. A 3D conversion is a reconstruction of the patient’s mandible or maxilla from the CT scan slices. After all the slices are put together, a good conversion will reveal the anatomy in 3D with scatter created by reflections off fillings during the scan removed. The conversion can also include colorization of anatomy to improve contrast between teeth, nerves, bone, etc. With a 3D conversion and viewing software (free for 3D Diagnostix customers) you can see an accurate image of your patients mandible, maxilla or quadrant from any angle in three dimensions– distal, mesial, top, buccal and bottom. Viewing the actual case images elsewhere on this website will let you see the level of detail better than words can describe. Click here to go to a page with a number of conversion images. This step would be the last step if you are interested only in diagnosing an existing condition. It is a preparatory step in treatment planning as the conversion image is used to plan a case in treatment planning software.

Digital treatment planning is where dentists get to leverage all the technology used up to this point to provide maximum treatment benefit to their patients.
Digital treatment planning is accomplished in one of two ways. A service provider can work with you to create the plan using their software. In this case you view the plan in free viewing software and discuss any changes with the service provider before approving the final plan. An added benefit is that the service provider should have a licensed dentist experienced with digital dentistry to review the plan and be available for consultations. The other option is to purchase planning software and training, then plan cases yourself. The cost of planning software runs from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars plus annual licensing fees.
There are several companies that supply treatment planning software for dental implant planning. There is also orthodontic treatment planning software. Let’s focus on implant planning for now. Dental implant planning software enables you to do a number of useful things. You can view the mandible or maxilla in two and three dimensions. You can rotate the 3D image on different axes. Accurate measurements can be made that can be relied on for treatment. Useful measurements include distance between a planned implant and– a nerve, adjacent teeth, the sinus wall, and an adjacent implant. Also important is the position of the implant relative to surrounding bone, the amount of bone, dimensions and angulation of the planned implant.

Once a plan is completed and approved by dentist, the plan is used to order a surgical guide. The surgical guide, as the name suggests, provides an accurate guide drilling prior to placing the implants. The guide is first affixed to the patient’s mandible or maxilla in one of three ways. Guides are bone, tooth or mucosa supported. Which method is used depends on clinical factors. The method of support selected for a particular case must be known to order a guide.
By sharing treatment plans between surgeon and restorative dentist, both can see and understand the limitations and opportunities each case presents. In this way the restorative dentist ensures the crown can be placed as he or she intends while the surgeon knows in advance if more bone is needed or an alternative solution has to be agreed on to satisfy both surgical and restorative needs.

To cover this topic completely would take several lectures. There are certainly many clinical issues to learn too. What we tried to do is touch on the fundamentals concerning the software and support services here.