Before you send
CBCT capture & check
A CBCT that is no good for planning looks perfectly fine on the machine's own screen. It shows up in the superimposition.
Mandible reconstructed from DICOM
Here the CBCT is not taken for diagnosis — it is taken to be merged with an impression. That changes what matters: not only sharpness, but position, bite, stillness and coverage.
Capture settings
- Field of view. It must cover the whole ridge to be planned and enough reference teeth for the superimposition. A narrow field over the implant site alone is not enough.
- Voxel. The smaller it is, the better the superimposition — but the more sensitive it is to movement. Choose the setting that keeps the patient still.
- Export. The whole DICOM folder. Not JPEG, not a PDF report, not an “image export”.
Metal
Metal restorations throw streaks straight through the region of interest. No filter removes them. Two things help: changing the head position so the streaks do not cross the implant site, and the R2 tray, which holds the teeth apart and gives clean reference surfaces for the superimposition.
Before you send
The four mistakes that void a CBCT
Check straight after the scan, while the patient is still in the chair. Any doubt — scan again.
Positioning
The wrong patient position or the wrong field setting leaves the implant site outside the volume.
Biting
With an R2 tray, the patient does not bite on the bite block. The pressure displaces it.
Movement
Movement during the scan or a sensor fault puts scatter through the volume.
Coverage
A hard bite pulls the tray away. Every tooth and the remaining ridge must be covered.
The check, while the patient is still sitting there
- Open the scan and look at the coronal and sagittal slices at the implant site. Is the ridge clearly readable?
- Is the whole tray inside the field, with all the reference teeth?
- Is there a double outline or blurring on structures that should be still? Then there was movement — repeat it.
- Has the tray moved? Check that a hard bite has not pressed it out of place.
One repeat now costs two minutes. One repeat after the patient has left costs an appointment, a second dose of radiation and a week.
Next step
Upload your first case
The form asks for everything needed so that no phone call is required: the files, the sites in FDI notation, the implant system and the surgical kit. You get a reference number and a tracking link.