Dentists often encounter cancer patients, who are to undergo radiotherapy or have received it in the recent past. Besides cancer therapy, these patients need dental treatment for different ailments. Therefore, it becomes paramount important for a dentist to know the effects of large doses of ionizing radiation on oral mucosa.
In this section, we shall talk about the effects of radiation on oral tissues.
Dose boundaries do not apply for radiation exposure of patients, since the decision to use radiation is reasonable depending upon the individual patient situation. When it has been decided that a medical procedure is justified, the procedure should be optimized. This means that the conditions should achieve the clinical purpose with the appropriate dose. Dose limits are determined only for the staff and not for patients.
The harmful effects of the excessive dose of the ionizing radiation can be divided into two types. These are as follows:
We shall discuss them one by one in detail.
In earlier articles on radiography, you studied the effects of ionizing radiation on biological tissues. These effects can be divided into two types- Deterministic and Stochastic. Therefore, the radiation safety becomes of paramount importance white taking a radiograph.
In this article termed as radiation physics, we shall talk about the ways, the x-rays are produced, the events that occur at atomic level during their production and how can one save oneself and others.
Electrons that travel from the filament to the tungsten convert part of their kinetic energy into x-ray photons. This phenomenon occurs by the formation of bremsstrahlung and characteristic radiation.
Radiation biology is the study of effects of ionizing radiation on living systems. In this article we shall talk about the harmful effects of ionizing radiation on tissues, how does it occur, and how sensitive different types of cells are?
The effects of radiation on the tissues can be divided into 2 broad categories. The Deterministic and Stochastic effects.
The exposer time for dental radiography is dependent upon the speed of the film whether its ‘D’ or ‘E’. The exposer time for various areas is given in the table below.
For exact data, you can see the instructions written on the inner side of the carton of the film. The modern microprocessor controlled radiography machines are coming with software that takes care of everything. You need to place the film properly, choose whether the patient is an adult or child, choose the tooth/area desired and shoot the film. You must take care of yourself and your staff for radiation protection. For radiation protection, read the article given below:
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