ISSN : 0376-4672
The odontogenic cutaneous fistula in facial area is uncommon but, well defined disease. It is difficult to diagnose from the dental origin of cutaneous sinus tract. Most patients may visit to the dermatologists or general hospital without cause of disease. They usually be treated by repeated surgical excisions, biopsies, and antibiotic medications, but suffered from recurrences. We studied odontogenic cutaneous fistula through retrospective study in Jeju Special Self-Governing Province between 1 January 2009 and 12 December 2015. There were 3 males, 5 females from 14 to 78 years old with an average age of 50.4 years old. Only 2 patients felt the toothache, others didn’t detect it. They suffered from recurrences and repeated treatments for 3 to 11 months with an average period of 7.9 months. They visited average 2.8 hospitals before a precise diagnosis in a dental clinic. All cases were fully healed endodontic treatment or extraction of origin teeth without recurrences. In conclusion, the cause of cutaneous fistula in facial area can be odontogenic. If dentists or doctors diagnose a patient with cutaneous fistula on face, they should check dental problems or take x-ray views for precise diagnosis. It could be helpful for differential diagnosis.
A short dental implant is considered as possible solution in difficult clinical situations for the placement of a regular length implant. Using a short implant avoiding more invasive surgical procedures simplifies the treatment plan and shortenes the duration of treatment. In this case, 71-year-old female came up with discomfort from her old mandibular denture. As she had fully edentulous mandible and got a negative feedback from removable denture, implant-supported fixed prosthesis was planned. Six short implants were placed on her mandible with severe alveolar bone loss. After 1 year follow up period, implants were well retained with any other abnormal findings. The patient was satisfied with her prostheses and satisfactory outcomes were attained in terms of both esthetic and functional clinical results.
Radiologic images in dentistry are essential to perform the diagnosis, treatment, and tracking process of prognosis, thus the ability of accurate evaluation in the diagnostic images is requested for dental clinician. Radiologic interpretation means recognition of a normality and an abnormality and to report the possible diagnosis and differential diagnosis list. Therefore, dental clinicians should be familiar with the basic principle of interpretation of intraoral and extraoral radiographic images primarily used in dental clinics. Recently, dental cone beam CT is widely used for diagnositc process, thus understanding the three dimensional images is requested. The objective of this manuscript is to help the dental clinicians to interpret accurately the diagnostic images by introducing the basic principles of the step by step analytic process in the appearance of a lesion.
These days, the clinical course of dental imaging sector has done a lot of implant-related imaging courses, including cone beam CT. In contrast, the general image reading course is not given a lot of opportunities to learn. Therefore, it is imperative that we talk about the general image interpretation that can be read easily applied in a dental clinic. When we see a strange radiographic finding of our patient in the dental clinic, we should first check whether the radiographic finding is a normal finding or a morbidity. If the finding is diagnosed as a morbidity, you should make plans for the appropriate therapy. The most important step is classification between normal state and morbidity. Some lesions may occur without any clinical symptoms. Therefore, we should read all the parts of radiographs, even the patient does not have clinical symptoms.
Teleradiology is the electronic transmission of radiologic images from one location to another for the purpose of interpretation and/or consultation. Today, images can be easily transmitted to another location using the high-speed internet. In medical area, teleradiology has developed rapidly in recent 10 years due to the imbalance between the demand and availability of diagnostic services. However, teleradiology in dentistry is still inactive. I would like to overview the current teleradiology system, and discuss the necessity and the potentiality.
