The application of X - ray in dentistry is very important. Most tissues and diseases in the oral and maxillary areas are not visible to the naked eye. So without the help of X-rays, we wouldn't be able to make a good diagnosis and plan a proper treatment. Since the discovery of X-rays in 1895, humans have gradually discovered that X-rays have bad effects on human body. This is not only a problem for individuals, but also for families, for society, and even for humanity.
The dose of X-rays used in dental diagnosis is not very likely to cause disease, and the chance of cancer is very small. The chance of the effects on the gonads and the destruction of genetic function is only 1 in 1 trillion. The radiation dose of all 14 oral X-rays is only 1 in 4.84 million to cause malignancies. Its exposure to the whole body is also very small. According to one study, 14 full-mouth x-rays of a child absorbed a dose of 33.6 microsieverts (3.36mrem)
The average film is 2.4 microsieverts (0.24mrem), which is tiny compared to the natural background radiation. Dental X-ray machines use a fixed exposure mode and therefore cover only a small fraction of the human body (about 16800cm2) (
When using a long cylinder collimator, 22.31cm2), the tissue involved is very limited compared to the broad medical field (0.13
%). The average dose of radiation received from cosmic rays or terrestrial radionuclides is about 200 microsieverts compared to normal background radiation, so the dose of dental X-rays is very low.
